


tooi mirai ni doko e yuku no

by Chash



Series: uchuuhikoushi no uta [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-09-20
Packaged: 2018-12-24 19:39:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 55,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12019608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chash/pseuds/Chash
Summary: Bellamy Blake wouldn't say he's had the best year, but he thinks he's starting to do better. He feels fine, most of the time.His crew, apparently, does not agree, because they went out and hired a therapy human for him. He didn't even know therapy humans were a thing.





	1. Prologue - Olympus

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a while since I did a multi-chapter fic, but it seems like the right call for this one! It's a general sci-fi AU, and while it is not directly based on any part of the Wayfarers series by Becky Chambers, it was definitely a big influence. Also that series is great, you should check it out. The title is from the Sakamoto Maaya song "Hemisphere" and means "in the distant future, where will I go?" 
> 
> Also, it's September, which means I'm taking holiday prompts on tumblr. Check out [this post](https://chasholidays.tumblr.com/post/164857047726/holiday-prompts-tokyo-drift) for details.

Artemis is the one who brings it up, overly casual a day before they're scheduled to land, and he probably should have seen something like this coming. He's the one who set her up; he knew how he was making her.

"We are picking up Clarke Griffin in Port Zeta."

He's doing his last checks on the inventory, not paying her much mind. "What's that?"

"Your new therapy human."

That gets his full attention, and when he looks up, Artemis is looking back at him. It's hard for her to really look _smug_ \--her casing isn't designed for a wide range of expressions--but she's doing her best.

"My what."

"Therapy human."

"Artemis. Stop playing around and tell me what you're talking about."

"The program has been gaining in popularity over the last ten standard years. Preliminary studies on their efficacy have been positive. Humans are social creatures. Compared to other organic species, humans perform worse and have a lower quality of life when they are the only one of their kind on a ship. Even if there is no interaction with the other human, current research suggests they are happier and more fulfilled." Her voice drops the academic tone, and her display brightens with her equivalent of a smirk. "I can quote statistics."

Bellamy's not having it. "You can tell me what you fucking _did_. Actually, Hestia?"

The cockpit lights turn blue to indicate the ship AI is listening. "Yes?"

"Comms on, all crew."

"Comms online."

He lets out a breath. "Who knew Artemis was looking at therapy humans?"

The silence is long enough that the answer is obvious: he's the only one who was kept in the dark.

"There have been studies--" Demeter starts, and he rubs his face.

"Yeah, I heard. You can't just buy a person to keep me company."

"There was no buying!" Artemis says, sounding offended.

"Unless you think all employment is slavery," says Hermes. "Which you might. But we went to an agency, so it was on the level."

"I told them it was a bad idea," Hephaestus says. "Do I need to be involved in this conversation?"

"I assume you care about the outcome," says Bellamy.

"Yes. But only the outcome."

"Then yeah, you can mute your comm." He waits for the click of the comm disconnecting and then says, "I'm not lonely." It's not exactly on topic, but he thinks that's probably the root issue.

"My existence indicates otherwise," says Artemis.

His jaw tenses, but it's not like he can argue. Artemis knows what she's doing here. He's never hidden that from her. 

If he'd known about therapy humans as a concept, maybe he wouldn't have her in the first place. Maybe he would have made a different stupid decision.

"So you just hired some girl to come live here?" he asks, in lieu of getting into that.

"She gets room and board, and she will help out as needed on the ship. Legitimate employment. Like Hermes said, on the level."

"According to her file, she is organized and good with numbers," he adds.

"Wow, exactly what I need a human for on a ship full of AIs."

"All you need her to do is be a human," says Hestia. 

If he'd guessed which of his crew had approved of this plan, he could have called it pretty well: Artemis instigating, Demeter and Hermes agreeing, Hephaestus against but not getting involved. Hestia was the wild card, the one who could have gone either way, and it stings a little to find out she was in favor of the idea.

He thought he was doing better.

"If all I had to do was be a human, I'd get bored."

It's the wrong thing to say; Artemis whirls on him. "You do get bored! You get bored all the time. You never have enough to do. So you should try a therapy human. She wants to join the crew, and you need more crew members. More _organic_ crew members. If you were not so stubborn--"

"Okay, okay," he says, holding up his hands. "I get it. We can give it a shot. You already have her picked out, and she's planning on being on the ship for at least--what did you tell her?"

"Seventy standard days," says Hermes, prompt. "Give or take. Our next human-aligned port will be Eden Point. She knows."

Bellamy sighs. "So if it doesn't work out, she knows where she'll be and when she'll be there."

"We wanted to help," Artemis says. AIs aren't exactly designed for nuance in their tones, but her petulance is unmistakable. "We did a good job. Clarke Griffin is the best choice."

"I'm sure. How many choices were there?"

"Eighteen."

"Jupiter. I didn't know being a therapy human was such a great gig."

"Some of them were definitely scammers," says Demeter. "But we vetted, as well as the agency. Clarke Griffin is the correct choice."

"I want you to send me all the files," he says. "Not just hers. I want to all of them, and the methodology you used to pick this one. Any communications you had with her, I want those too." He hesitates, but there isn't really a way around it he can see. "Hestia, unmute Hephaestus."

"Unmuted."

"Okay, listen up. Executive order. User Bellamy Blake, pass phrase Augustus Octavian Seven Alpha Nine." He waits for all five AIs to give their confirmations, which they do in activation order: first Hestia, then Hephaestus, Demeter, Hermes, and finally Artemis. Giving executive orders always makes the hair stand up on the back of his neck; he never forgets that everyone on his crew is an AI, but he rarely takes advantage of that fact. They're intelligent, independent beings who could survive on their own, if they were allowed to. Most of them time they can obey him or disobey him as they see fit, and he likes that. Executive orders take away their autonomy. They can't not listen to him now, and it always feels as if he's cheating, taking advantage of them.

And of course they don't mind, but they _can't_ mind. Their programming doesn't allow them to be upset about this. It's a fact of their existence: they serve organics. Once Bellamy has said his pass phrase, he can make them do anything, and it will never even occur to them to object. They aren't capable of questioning it.

Maybe he does need another human around. Someone who understands why this makes him feel so strange, if he's lucky.

Since it's an order they can't ever disobey, Bellamy thinks over his phrasing carefully. AIs are literal, and he doesn't want this to ever be something anyone else can take advantage of, something he'll regret. But he also doesn't want it to be something they can weasel out of if they think it's necessary. "No organic beings can be invited to live on the _Olympus_ without my permission," he says. "You must inform me if you are trying to add members to this crew. You can use your discretion for visitors, but anyone who will need a bunk, you tell me before you offer that to them. Repeat that back as you understand it."

Bellamy's AI programming knowledge is self-taught and hard won; he's read a lot of books, and Raven will always accept his questions, no matter how stupid, but he has no real inborn talent for the work. She was the one who told him to have them repeat things back to him, whether they were executive orders or just regular commands. Like humans and other organic forms of intelligence, AI brains interpret words based on their own experience and biases, and it's good to make sure everyone is on the same page before moving on.

Hermes and Artemis's versions of the order both need a little tweaking, no surprise there, but that's it, and he ends with the standard, "Executive order complete, Bellamy Blake admin logout. Pass phrase Augustus Octavian Seven Alpha Nine."

The lights that serve as Artemis's eyes turn on again, and she blinks them a few times, as if waking up from sleep. "Sorry," she says, soft. "I did not think--"

"It's okay," he says. "I know why you did it. But it's not safe for me to have people I don't know on the ship. I need to know when these things are happening."

"You _are_ the one who programmed me to not respect your authority," Artemis points out, and he smiles a little. 

"I know. I don't blame you. If I'd known therapy humans were a thing, I would have been expecting it."

"You can still tell her to leave."

"I'll read the files," he says. "But unless there's a major red flag you all missed, I'll take her. She's expecting to come on this ship in good faith. Maybe she just needs a ride to Eden Point."

"Maybe she wants to work on a ship," says Artemis. "I can think of worse places to be."

"Yeah? You can give me that list later. Hermes, you have those files for me?" he adds.

"I gave you access," says Hermes. "Hidden personnel file _Company_. All information present and accounted for. Am I done?"

"You're done, thanks. But I'm sending you the inventory list for Port Zeta, I need you to figure out where we're getting them."

"Will do. You should let Clarke Griffin come with me."

"I should?"

"As I keep telling you, AIs cannot haggle. I accept prices given to me. She said she was persuasive, I want to see if she really is."

"Noted. I'll let you know. Send me the list when it's done."

"You got it, boss."

Artemis is still looking guilty, and Bellamy's stomach twists. He always feels a little bad about Artemis; creating AIs to replace humans is always a mistake, according to Raven, and while he doesn't regret it, he does think it was unfair. Artemis isn't his sister, and he doesn't expect her to be. But he wanted her to be someone who could fill a similar role on the crew as Octavia's, so he gave them similar personalities and traits, and it's not a good fit for an AI. It's just difficult for both of them. But all she knows how to do is her best.

"Okay, I need you to talk me through these," he tells her, with a smile. "I want to know how you picked Clarke Griffin."

"Because she was the best one," says Artemis, brightening. "Obviously. Where do you want to review them?"

"We can do it in the mess," he says. "I'm sure Demeter has opinions too."

"Many, many opinions. I am sorry," she adds, her slightly tinny voice soft and pitched to sound genuine.

"No apology necessary. I get it. It might be nice. Having another human around."

It doesn't even feel like a lie, once he's said it.

"It is good for you. I can find you the studies."

His smile is a little faint, but it is genuine. He's used to them by now. They love him, and they want to help. It's hard to be that upset about it, really. "Yeah. Looking forward to it."


	2. Port Zeta

Meeting Clarke Griffin is the first thing on Bellamy's Port Zeta agenda, which is convenient. If he didn't get it out of the way, he'd be stressing about it until it happened, which Artemis was probably counting on. He has to give her credit; she's making this as painless as possible for him.

Aside from Clarke, they don't have anything particularly noteworthy to do on this trip. As always, Hermes is in charge of unloading and delivering the cargo, which he excels at; his inability to haggle for himself makes him feel like a failure, but it's an advantage when he's the seller. He remembers every price he's ever quoted and has the paper and audio trail to back it up, and while he hates that his basic programming prevents him from wheeling and dealing, Bellamy's pretty sure it does them more good to have the reputation of always taking the payment that was agreed on and not a penny more. They're small-time traders; their clients' trust is basically all they have.

Demeter and Hephaestus prefer to not leave the ship if they can avoid it, but they both have things to pick up this time. Demeter is getting hers done now, so it will be done with, while Hephaestus will put it off until tomorrow, as if divine intervention will somehow prevent him from having to go. 

Artemis rarely has specific duties, but of course she wants to come with him to meet Clarke.

"The two of you have yet to talk," she points out. "Hermes and I are the only ones she knows. It would be cruel to make her meet you alone."

"Yeah, what a horrible punishment. You can come, I don't mind," he adds, glancing over his shoulder. "If she's joining the crew, you're going to meet her anyway. You don't have to convince me."

According to her correspondence, Clarke Griffin is twenty-three and recently out of university. She's been looking for work for a few months and not having much luck, but her resume says she has experience on ships and with AIs. She's not looking to get rich, but she's at a crossroads in her life and wouldn't mind getting off of Arcadia and seeing more of the universe.

As a test-run for the whole therapy human idea, she does seem like a good choice. He has to give his crew credit for that.

She didn't send a picture, but he's hoping to be able to place her based on the demographic information she supplied: 1.65 meters tall, blonde hair, blue eyes, pale skin. Even without Artemis, he doesn't think she'd be too hard to find, but it only takes the AI about a second to scan the cafe and locate her.

"Ninety-four percent certainty of positive identification," she says. "Back right table, 138 degrees from your current line of sight."

"Thanks, very specific." He glances over and sees her at once, unmistakable. She's looking around with slight anxiety, but stops at the sight of them. She didn't get his demographic information, but Artemis is a dead giveaway. Since AIs don't eat, it's not common for them to come to any kind of dining establishment; she sticks out like a sore thumb.

"You want to go say hi without me?" he asks. "I think they have fresh coffee."

"I still do not understand why organics care so much about freshness in preservable goods," she says. "But I will meet her. I can tell her about you before you can argue with me."

"Perfect. See you in a few."

Clarke stands to greet Artemis, offering her hand, and Bellamy relaxes a little. She'd been polite in her messages, but plenty of people are awkward with actual AI interaction, even if they deal with them a lot. From a distance, it's easy to forget that they aren't organic, but it's impossible to ignore during physical interactions. Like all of his bodied crew, Artemis is a humanoid model, and while she's obviously not organic, she's still fairly high end. Part of her function was to act as his sparring and exercise partner, so she's a little taller than Clarke, slim and built for speed. If Clarke is uncomfortable interacting with her as an equal, she shows no sign of it--her smile is easy and she invites Artemis to join her, like she presumably would with any other humanoid.

Once he's sure Clarke and Artemis aren't in immediate danger of an altercation, he turns his attention to the menu, finds to his delight that they have not only real, fresh Earth coffee but also some truly beautiful _kyrash_ on display. They've always been a favorite of his, but Demeter's never gotten the hang of them. He checks to see if Clarke has any food and sees nothing but a mug in front of her, so he gets one for her too. That's probably friendly. He hopes it is.

The nerves don't fully set in until he's walking over to the table, which is also when it occurs to him how long it's been since he actually met a new person he was planning to interact with for more than a few hours. He has business associates and contacts, even a few friends, but he hasn't ever brought on an organic as a crew member before, and he doesn't know how to make a good impression on her. What is Clarke expecting from him? His AIs think he needs more human interaction, and that's about all she knows about him. It's actually pretty embarrassing, now that he thinks of it.

And, of course, she's talking to an AI whose personality is modeled on his younger sister, so when he gets to them, Artemis is saying, "He reads all the time. Kind of a nerd. He has other hobbies, but reading is his favorite. History, classics, obviously--"

"Thanks, Artemis," he says. "I can take it from here." He puts a plate in front of Clarke. "These are my favorite, I thought I'd get you one. If you don't like it, I'll take it."

Clarke stands, offers him her hand as well. He puts down his other food and shakes; her hands are smooth, but her grip is firm and sure, and her smile is friendly without being particularly warm.

It's not much to go on, but it's a pretty good first impression.

"You must be Bellamy."

"I guess I could have started there, yeah. Nice to meet you."

"You too. What's the pastry?"

" _Kyrash_. It's Aranis, I spent a lot of time in their space when I was a kid. This is what I got for breakfast on special occasions. It's kind of like a turnover, your basic pastry and fruit."

"Thanks. I haven't tried much Aranis cuisine."

Bellamy takes his seat and a long sip of coffee. It's not worth it for them to grow beans on the ship, and while he buys them frozen, it never tastes as good. He's never been able to explain it. "You're from Arcadia, right?" he asks. "Not Port Zeta, but around here."

"The other side of the planet, but yeah. We used to travel a lot, but the other direction. I grew up with Rydal food, not Aranis."

"I can't handle Rydal food. The texture is just--"

Clarke smiles at his expression. "Too slimy?"

"For my taste, yeah." He takes a sip of his coffee. "So you really have traveled."

"Lying about having experience on spaceships is never a good idea, I don't think. I'm fine with artificial gravity. I'm good with long stints off-planet, but I've never been completely spacebound for more than--" She thinks it over. "Call it two standard months? And that wasn't fun."

"Yeah, I can't imagine being off solid ground for that long, don't worry." It seems like a sign they're shifting to shop talk, and he straightens up, regarding her thoughtfully. "I spend most of my time in unaligned space. We don't stay up for that long at a time, but it's often a while between human ports."

"Seventy days, right?" Clarke asks. "That's what--Hermes, right?"

"Yeah."

"Hermes said we were taking the long way to Eden Point."

"Something like that, yeah. I think our longest stretch in actual space is twenty days, but we mostly stop at mixed and unaligned worlds."

"And I couldn't possibly get to human space from one of those if I needed to," she says, voice gently teasing. "If I hate you, I'm not going to be trapped forever."

"I thought money might be an issue. _Desperate to leave but can't afford to get off the planet_ is a pretty common story."

"It is, but it's not mine."

His next response feels important. She offered no explanation of her own, so he assumed she doesn't want to. But he does think it's his business, broadly, why she wants to be on his ship, especially without any promise of profit. He's not planning to keep her from earning anything she can, but Bellamy's never made much more than he needs to survive. He's not getting rich, just getting by.

"So, have you always wanted to be a therapy human?" he finally asks, and she laughs.

"You know, the therapy human system was originally designed for Thessans."

"Really?"

"It's based off an old Earth idea. Certain species are good at calming others down. Dogs are still doing it for us, although we don't really think of it as a formal program anymore. They would stay with humans or other animals with anxiety. Humans serve the same purpose for Thessans. Something about us makes them less anxious about being on interspecies crews. And then they found that having a second human helped on crews with only one too, kind of by accident."

"How does everyone but me know about this?" he grumbles, and she smiles.

"I took a class and had to get a license. Besides, you apparently prefer history for your reading."

"I didn't know I was doing so much psychological damage to myself being alone," he says, although it doesn't really sound like a joke once it's out.

It's Clarke's turn to study him. "Tell me about the crew. All AIs?" 

She nods to Artemis, and Bellamy belatedly realizes how quiet she's been, just watching them. Probably taking notes to review with the rest of the crew later: the anthropologically fascinating first meeting between humans.

"Yeah. Artemis is our most recent addition, she's been active for about a year. Oldest is the ship AI, Hestia. She's been running since I was a kid. Same with Hephaestus, our tech, and Demeter, our agriculture specialist."

Clarke is smiling again. "Did you name all of them?"

"My mom thought it would make me feel more comfortable with them."

"I guess it worked."

"I guess so."

"Hermes said he was in public relations? I wasn't actually sure what that meant."

"Buying and selling, basically. I got him after my mom died. I'm fine at meeting people and figuring out where to get merchandise, but I'm not good at the basic business stuff. Maintaining contact, making actual deals? Hermes is a lot better at that. Especially back then. I was just a kid, no one took me seriously."

She nods. "I guess that makes sense. And you didn't know they were trying to get you a therapy human," she says, with a slight question in her tone. It wasn't in the correspondence, but he's not surprised she guessed. Artemis and Hermes both gave some shifty answers to her questions about Bellamy's expectations for a companion, technical truths that anyone with basic experience with AIs would peg as essentially lies.

"No." He glances at Artemis. "All her idea."

"I told you there were studies," she says. "Clarke has seen them too."

"I know." He clears his throat. "She wasn't wrong, I guess. It's been tough, doing this--I'm not alone, but it's not the same as having organics around."

"Yeah, I get that. I have a decent amount of experience with AIs, I know the pros and cons."

"So that won't bother you?"

"What won't?"

"They're my crew," he says, because this part isn't negotiable. "They're not slaves, they're not appliances, they're not lesser beings. They're good at what they do and I expect them to be treated with the same respect you'd give anyone else."

"Yeah, I get that," says Clarke. "And it won't bother me. Like I said, I have experience with AIs. I know that I always have to listen to the ship's computer, even if I think it doesn't make sense, unless there's a legitimate malfunction. Like I don't have to try to understand a human having a stroke."

It sounds like something that was drilled into her as a child, and he has to smile. "You can still argue with them about non-trivial things, same as I assume you will with me. I don't expect blind obedience or anything, just--"

"Respect. They're not second-class citizens, they're full members of the crew."

"Exactly."

"I'm good with that." She worries her lip. "I'm not looking for romance," she finally says. "I know--there wasn't any indication that was a factor, I don't think you're angling for that. I'm not trying to--"

"Hey, breathe," he says, giving her a small smile. "It's okay. I didn't even know this was happening, I didn't have any expectations." He glances at Artemis. "You aren't trying to use therapy humans as a matchmaking service, are you?"

"Well, how long has it been since--"

" _Artemis _."__

__"No, I am not," she says. "Bellamy finds his own romantic companionship. Friendship is his problem."_ _

__"I have plenty of friends."_ _

__"Nathan Miller," says Artemis. "Raven Reyes. Gina Martin. Monty Green. Yarl--"_ _

__"Monty Green?" asks Clarke, mercifully cutting the list off before she finds out how short it really is. "On Deliquis?"_ _

__Bellamy frowns. "Yeah."_ _

__"I actually know Monty. We were in school together until he dropped out to do--I honestly don't know what, but it didn't sound legal."_ _

__"That's Monty, yeah. He's dating my friend Miller, and whatever they do is definitely not, uh--completely legal. But they're good. Deliquis is actually our first stop, so you can see him. If you come with us," he adds, belatedly. "If this isn't--"_ _

__"No, I want to come." She grins, bright and apparently genuine. "When do we leave?"_ _

__*_ _

__"Oh good, she is pretty," says Hermes, which is bad enough before he follows up with, "She is, right? Symmetrical face, well proportioned features, good ratio of--"_ _

__"Fuck's alive, will you stop?" Bellamy finally manages. "I programmed you to know better."_ _

__"You also programmed me to not care. Hi, I am Hermes. You must be Clarke."_ _

__"I must. Nice to meet you. Like Bellamy said, please refrain from speculating on my body ratios and relative attractiveness."_ _

__"Apologies," he says, chipper. "Will not happen again. It is a pleasure to meet you. I take it you've decided to join the crew."_ _

__"That's the plan, yeah. Bellamy said you wanted me to help you get around your honesty protocols so you could haggle."_ _

__"I tried to do it with Bellamy, but he is not good at it," says Hermes, voice despairing. Despite the limits of AI inflection, Hermes is an expert at all manner of theatrics. Bellamy tells himself he's proud._ _

__"Sorry to let you down. You don't have to go with him if you don't want to," he adds to Clarke. "He'll be fine."_ _

__"No, I want to. It sounds fun. Besides, I'm part of the crew now, right? Might as well get started. You have the itinerary?" she asks Hermes._ _

__"I do. Any additions, boss?"_ _

__Bellamy shakes his head. "You're good. Get Clarke back for dinner, okay? She needs to ingest food to live."_ _

__"That sounds terrible," says Hermes._ _

__"Right?" says Artemis. "We are so lucky."_ _

__Bellamy ignores her. "You know what time dinner is?"_ _

__"Nineteen-hundred. I will bring her back. You can relax."_ _

__"All prior interactions indicate he is incapable of relaxing," Artemis points out. "Have fun!"_ _

__Bellamy waits until they're well out of Clarke and Hermes' earshot, on their way back to the ship, before he says, "Please tell me you weren't using the therapy human thing as a matchmaking service."_ _

__"We were not using the the therapy human thing as a matchmaking service," she says obediently._ _

__He scrubs his face. "Artemis."_ _

__"You told me to tell you that and I did. And it is true," she adds. "Matchmaking was an acceptable possible sub-result. The odds seemed fairly reasonable that the the two of you would be compatible. I am sorry you are not."_ _

__"I don't need you finding me dates. Any of you. And if I hear anyone talking about how symmetrical Clarke's face is--"_ _

__"It is, though," says Artemis._ _

__"Perfectly symmetrical humans would actually be creepy," he tells her. "We only like symmetry up to a point. Imperfections are a plus."_ _

__"Does the mole on her lip count as an imperfection?" Artemis asks. "You have the scar on yours, but other organics still seem to find you attractive despite that."_ _

__"We are not talking about this."_ _

__"Not talking about what? You were the one trying to educate me on human attractiveness. So you should be able to tell me which marks are good and which are not."_ _

__"They're all fine," he says. "It depends on the person. And Clarke's a crew member, not a romantic interest, so don't ask me what does and does not work about her face. It's not like that. Let it go."_ _

__"I really am curious about the mole," she grumbles. "According to my database, they are sometimes called _beauty marks_. Are freckles beauty marks too? What is the difference?"_ _

__"I can't believe your database doesn't tell you."_ _

__"You can too."_ _

__"I honestly didn't even notice she had a mole," he lies. "Seriously, though. I need you to let this go, okay? Clarke was clear, she's not interested in that. The last thing I want is for her to be uncomfortable on the ship, especially when it's completely fucking unnecessary."_ _

__"I understand." She pauses. "Why not an executive order?"_ _

__"Fuck, don't tell me I need to make it an executive order. Are you going to fight me on this?"_ _

__"No, just interested. I have been tracking when you make executive orders and when you issue regular commands. I find it interesting."_ _

__"I try to only issue executive orders when it's a matter of life and death. Strangers getting personal information about us and the ship is dangerous. You and Hermes being dicks to Clarke sucks, and I'll be pissed, but I'm not going to take away your autonomy over it. You can just not be dicks."_ _

__"Yes, that does sound easier," she says._ _

__"That's not telling me you won't do it," he points out._ _

__"I will not make you give me an executive order."_ _

__"Artemis."_ _

__"I will not make Clarke feel uncomfortable on the _Olympus_."_ _

__He sighs. "That's the best I'm going to do, isn't it?"_ _

__"That was what you wanted, right?"_ _

__"Obviously," he agrees. "I'm serious. This isn't happening."_ _

__"I know you are," she says. "I am too."_ _

__She starts skipping, and Bellamy thinks, not for the first time, that he might live to regret this one._ _

__Only one way to find out._ _

__*_ _

__Hermes brings Clarke to the mess hall at 18:59 and says they aren't _late_ , which Bellamy of course can't argue with, but he was waiting for Clarke to eat, to be polite, and now he's grumpy and hungry and mildly stressed. Plus, the first thing he notices when Clarke smiles is the mole on her lip, so he's going to have to murder half his crew, probably._ _

__But at least she's smiling._ _

__"Have fun?" he asks._ _

__"Yeah. We got a lot of stuff, and apparently your contacts like me."_ _

__"She _is_ pretty," says Hermes. "I knew it."_ _

__"Thanks for believing in me," says Clarke. "What's for dinner?"_ _

__Demeter serves them before she comes out to meet Clarke. As one of the older AIs on the ship, her casing is fairly bulky, not just because the technology has evolved, but because his mother was scraping funds together and couldn't afford the nice stuff. But Clarke takes it in stride, asking her the standard polite questions about her work, how long she's been on the _Olympus_ , if she likes it here._ _

__"Could you look for another job if you wanted?"_ _

__Demeter's fan whirs a little as she considers her answer. "Only Hestia is bound to the ship," she says. "It would be hard for her to leave. I would have to get Bellamy's permission, but if he transferred executive ownership, I could work for someone else."_ _

__"Technically, you could work for someone without that," he says. "But most people don't want to hire AIs who aren't under their executive command."_ _

__Clarke taps her jaw. "What would happen if Bellamy died unexpectedly? I always wondered about that when I was a kid."_ _

__"But you did not know Bellamy when you were a kid."_ _

__"Generalization," Artemis explains. She's better at that kind of thing than Demeter is; Demeter could honestly use an upgrade. "She said Bellamy, but the question was broader. When she was younger, she wanted to know what happens to AIs in the case of the sudden death of their owners."_ _

__"I don't like that word," he says._ _

__"I know, but it is the technical term. And Clarke is asking about a technical issue."_ _

__"All AIs are required to have owners," Demeter puts in. "If the owner dies without transferring ownership, the manufacturer will recall it and override the system."_ _

__"That happens with AIs being misused too," Bellamy notes. Clarke raises her eyebrows. "What?"_ _

__"You might not know about therapy humans, but you definitely get AI law."_ _

__"Which one do you think I use more? I spent months after my mom died trying to figure out if I could legally free them if anything happened to me."_ _

__"And?"_ _

__"Illegal," says Demeter._ _

__" _Super_ illegal," adds Artemis._ _

__"Basically. People aren't comfortable with the idea of an AI who doesn't answer to anyone."_ _

__"Neither are AIs," Demeter says. "As much as Bellamy dislikes the idea of being my owner, I dislike the idea of not having one more."_ _

__"But we could change that," says Artemis. "You dislike it because of programming. Someone could go in, switch off the programming, and boom. No more owner. And you would not be bothered at all."_ _

__"Isn't _that_ just as weird?" Clarke asks, making a face._ _

__"Just as weird as what?" asks Artemis._ _

__"It doesn't bother you that someone could just go in and turn off parts of your brain?"_ _

__"Does it bother you that your brain just turns parts of itself off with no explanation?" she shoots back. "I prefer my brain. When it malfunctions, it can be fixed._ _

__"But--" Clarke opens and shuts her mouth. "I was going to say anyone could go in and just shut you off, but that's true for organics too. It's probably about as easy to reprogram an AI as it is to destroy a human."_ _

__"Much easier to destroy a human," says Artemis. "You have so many soft parts."_ _

__"Wow," says Bellamy. "Don't say that."_ _

__"Why not? It is true. Even your bones are comparatively weak."_ _

__"Yeah, but it's not polite to remind people how easily you could murder them. They don't want to know that."_ _

__"I never said I would murder anyone. Just that you _could_ be murdered."_ _

__Clarke is smiling a little into her drink. "I feel much better, if it helps."_ _

__Bellamy rolls his eyes, but it is kind of nice, not being the only human in the room. At this point, he's used to AI logic, but it's still not _logical_ to him. Not like it is to them._ _

__"So, in conclusion, AIs have owners, and if they don't, their manufacturer overrides them and they're reassigned," he says._ _

__"Are there any rogues?" Clarke asks. "I bet you know."_ _

__"A few. Usually there was a kind of last command involved. People whose personal AIs are doing dirty work for them sometimes give them executive orders about what to do in case of their deaths. They can't self terminate or run away, but people always find ways to get around factory settings."_ _

__"Yeah?" She props her chin on her hand. "Like what?"_ _

__His favorite story, about an organized crime lord on Neestia Prime who gave his AI an incredibly long and convoluted series of instructions--none of which could be known to be illegal but definitely _were_ \-- to complete after his death, gets them through the rest of dinner, and then she asks for a tour of the ship. Artemis, for the first time today, decides she has somewhere else to be, but Bellamy can't actually point to that as suspicious activity. She doesn't usually want to hang out with him this much, and if not for Clarke, she would have bailed before dinner. _ _

__Still, he can't help _being_ suspicious. They have him on edge._ _

__"So, I'm still missing one other crew member, right?" Clarke asks in the hallway._ _

__"Hephaestus, yeah. We're on our way to him now. You met Hestia on your way in?"_ _

__"Briefly, yeah."_ _

__"She tends to be quiet. Hestia?"_ _

__The wall lights switch to blue. "Yes?"_ _

__"You met Clarke?"_ _

__"Yes. Hello again, Clarke."_ _

__"Hi."_ _

__"Are you taking her to her room?"_ _

__"Engineering first."_ _

__"Did you need something from me?"_ _

__"A run down of what you think she should know would be good."_ _

__The blue lights dim slightly and then brighten again, as if they're breathing. It's the standard indication that Hestia is actively listening but in standby as she processes, and Bellamy always finds it soothing. When he first came to the _Olympus_ , he'd never had his own room before, and he didn't know how to sleep without the sounds of dozens of other boys around him, without being able to open his eyes and see out the window to the sky._ _

__Hestia had been the one to suggest it, staying in the room with him, playing white noise over the speakers, but it had been the light that really helped, the pulse that felt like there was another living being with him, someone who would notice if anything bad happened._ _

__"You have experience on ships like this, yes?" she asks Clarke._ _

__"I do."_ _

__"So you know how to contact me and the rest of the crew."_ _

__"Yeah."_ _

__"Emergency procedures are unique. And a refresher never hurts. Bellamy?"_ _

__He frowns. "What?"_ _

__"I think you should explain the emergency procedures to Clarke. I want to see how your recollection is."_ _

__"Are you testing me?"_ _

__"Just curious."_ _

__Clarke is looking amused, and he gives her a rueful smile. "I know the emergency procedures, Hestia."_ _

__"Then you should not have any trouble telling them to her."_ _

__He gets most of them, and Hestia tells him he did a good job before switching off. It's a little embarrassing, but--if he's honest, she's as much his mother as Aurora Blake was, in a lot of ways. It's her job to mildly embarrass him._ _

__In engineering, Hephaestus is busy and a little brusque, like always. He's as warm as any of the AIs once you get to know him, but shyer, and it always takes him time to get used to new crew. Now that Clarke's around, maybe he'll stop being awkward about Artemis. It's about time for that anyway._ _

__"Did you program all of them?" Clarke asks, curious, as he leads her back to her room._ _

__"Some of them. Hestia was already established when we got the ship, but her previous owner didn't give her a name, just called her _computer_."_ _

__"So you named her Hestia."_ _

__He shrugs. "My mom said she was going to be my home. That she'd take care of us. Hestia was the goddess of the home and the hearth, so it made sense to me."_ _

__She nodded. "I knew the other names, but not hers."_ _

__"My mom got the AI kits for Hephaestus and Demeter as soon as we could afford them. I was too young to do any work putting them together myself, but she told me what they were going to do and let me name them and pick their personalities. I went with the mythological theme. My mom's name was Aurora, so it felt like they all fit. They're, uh--those two are pretty cheap, simple kits. There wasn't a lot to do in terms of customization, so it was just a few binary choices. Outgoing or solitary, cheerful or grumpy, that kind of thing. But they grow as you have them."_ _

__"And Demeter said she'd been active for twenty years. How old were you?"_ _

__"Six."_ _

__"And then you got Hermes after your mom died."_ _

__"Eight years ago now, yeah."_ _

__He's braced for the next one, but still isn't sure what he'll say about Artemis. It's easy to not think there's more to his and his mother's story: a poor woman who scraped together enough money to buy a new ship and a new life for herself and her child. One she died, he took over._ _

__But something doesn't quite add up._ _

__"And then Artemis," she says, her voice careful._ _

__"I got her last year."_ _

__He can see her considering the words. Part of him thinks he should take pity on her, but he wants to see what she says, how she handles it. He's curious._ _

__"I didn't get what she does on the ship. What her role is."_ _

__"Miscellaneous duties as required." He hesitates for a second outside her room, stomach all twisted up in knots. It's across from his and the obvious choice for her quarters, clean and already mostly furnished, but part of him feels as if he's giving up. If Clarke lives here and Octavia comes home, she won't have a place of her own._ _

__But she doesn't want one. That's why she left._ _

__"This is your room," he says, putting his hand on the access panel to open the door. "Mine's across the hall. I'd be inclined to leave both of us able to access each other's rooms in case of emergency, but if you're not comfortable with that--"_ _

__She's already going inside, putting her bag on the desk and sitting on the bed, bouncing experimentally. To his relief, it feels nothing like replacing his sister, not like making Artemis did. It just feels like having someone new around._ _

__"No, that makes sense." She worries her lip. "Look, I'm not--I don't expect you to tell me your life story tonight. It's not like I'm telling you mine. But I assume if there's something I need to know, you'll tell me that."_ _

__"I will."_ _

__"Okay, good. Then Artemis performs miscellaneous duties as required."_ _

__"Yeah, but I wouldn't really try to tell her to do anything. If I were you."_ _

__She smirks. "I got that, yeah."_ _

__It is tempting to say something more, to linger, but she's had a long day and looks like she might not get up from the bed, so he just offers a last smile. "Do you need anything else tonight? We aren't leaving the planet until tomorrow morning, so if you think of anything else you need, we can get it then. Or bail if the bed is uncomfortable or--"_ _

__"I'm good, Bellamy," she says. "Thank you."_ _

__"Sure. I eat breakfast at eight-hundred, but Demeter doesn't really cook for that, so whenever you show up, she'll be able to tell you where the food is. Or you can take advantage of being planetside and buy something, if you want."_ _

__"Got it. Goodnight."_ _

__"Night."_ _

__It's still early, and part of him feels as if he should go find Artemis and tell her how it went, but he's tired himself. Meeting new people is always stressful, and after a full day of socializing, he's ready to be on his own._ _

__"Oh, Bellamy?" Clarke asks, when he hits the inner access panel on the door._ _

__"Yeah?"_ _

__"Is there a way to leave that open?"_ _

__"There is. Are you asking because you want it open now, or just generally?"_ _

__"Now," she says. "In case anyone needs me."_ _

__"Yeah, it's pretty easy, I'll show you." She comes over so he can show her the settings, and he does his best not to notice her warmth. AIs have give off their own heat, but it's not the same as humans._ _

__It would be really nice if they were wrong about the whole therapy human thing, but it's been less than a day, and it already feels like something missing inside him is rebuilding itself, piece by piece._ _

__"And you're across the hall, right?"_ _

__"Yeah. My door's, uh--it'll be open until I go to sleep. So if you need anything, just ask."_ _

__"Got it. Thanks again._ _

__"Sure. Sleep well."_ _

__He settles in on his own bunk with the book he was reading, but he can see out the door and into Clarke's room when he looks up. Even though he can't see her most of the time, it's nice to just glance up and see an open door and signs of life, instead of the sealed-off, empty space where his sister used to be._ _

__Not the same, of course. But a new kind of nice._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm kind of ahead on chapters right now, so I'll probably put the next one up Saturday? Depends on how I'm feeling. It's been a while since I did one of these, I'll just play it by ear.


	3. Deliquis

It doesn't occur to Bellamy until the next morning that he's never lived with an organic to whom he was not related. He wouldn't have thought that made a big difference, was never particularly conscious of living his life with the assumption of familial intimacy with everyone on the ship.

He realizes it he doesn't have that anymore only after he staggers into the mess in his usual breakfast state: hair a mess, glasses crooked on his face, dressed in nothing but his underwear.

Octavia had always at least made him put on a shirt, but once she left, he stopped bothering with it. None of the AIs care much what he wears, and he likes to have his coffee and protein bar before he jumps into the shower and gets fully prepared for the day. It's just what he does; it's never occurred to him to feel odd about it until he sees Clarke already sitting at the table, drinking her own cup of coffee and eating a bowl of cereal, fully clothed with her head cocked in his general direction.

"Morning," she says, mild.

He rubs the back of his neck. "Hey, sorry. I kind of forgot--I'll go put on some clothes."

"No, that's okay. This is actually helpful."

He feels heat rush to his cheeks. "Helpful?"

Clarke's embarrassment takes a second longer to get to her face, but with her light complexion, it's easy to spot. "Oh, not--I've only ever been on commercial ships before? And I was trying to figure out why this felt different. When you're a passenger, it's kind of like being in a new town. Everyone's room is their house, and the ship is a public place. But--the whole ship really is your home."

"Yeah. But I still usually put a shirt on when other people are around."

"You can do it tomorrow," she says. "But I'm going to come down in my pajamas too."

He has to smile. "Feel free."

That's how it goes for the first few days, the two of them getting used to each other, Bellamy figuring out how to live with another organic, Clarke adjusting to living on the ship. As she told him, she does have experience in space, but it's clear that she's never lived on a ship long term before. There's the regular adjustment to the artificial gravity and day/night cycle, which even Bellamy has trouble with when he's been planetside for a while, but there's also the _time_. It's a small ship that doesn't take a lot of work to maintain, and what work it does need, the AIs take care of. It's part of why Artemis exists, and why Clarke's here now; the humans on the crew have always had plenty of time to themselves. Even the AIs are idle more often than not. 

She shows up on the bridge on the fourth day, sits down in the copilot's seat and says, "Okay, seriously, what do you _do_?"

"Read a lot," he says. "Exercise. Get in touch with people who want to buy and sell stuff. Check that we're on course."

"How much of that can I do? I'm going out of my mind."

He has to smile. "As much as you want. Sorry, I was--I thought you might need some time to adjust."

"I did. But now I'm adjusted and I want something to do. So--what have you got?"

"Hermes said you did pretty well with negotiations. I'm working on getting in touch with contacts, seeing what people want and what people have, but it's not like I like it. You can take that over if you want."

Her eyes are way. "Really?"

"Don't tell me that sounds too good to be true."

"Not that, but--do you really want that off your plate, or do you just want me to have something to do? I can do something else."

He has to smile. "Yeah, Clarke. I'm really good with you taking this over. Division of labor is good. Honestly, if you want, you can just help me out for the next few days, I'll tell you what I do, you can get a feel for it, and then we can figure out what responsibilities you take on and what kind of compensation you'll get."

"Compensation?"

"I'm not going to make you work and not pay you."

"I'm asking to work."

"Well, I'm still going to pay you."

"Can you afford it?"

"As long as I don't pay you more than I can afford, yeah. I've got a pretty good system worked out here, honestly. The crew is well-trained and good at their jobs, so we keep costs low. I buy raw materials in bulk and we turn them into what we need. Hephaestus makes fuel for the ship, Demeter makes fuel for the organics. I can sell things for more than I buy them for, and I don't have a lot of other costs. I'm never going to be rich, but I have savings, and if you want to stay here, you will too."

"I'm good at budgets," Clarke says. "I assume you have AIs to track that, but--"

"They're better at tracking budgets than making them, yeah. That would be good. Like I said, if you want to be more involved in the crew, we'll figure it out."

"Okay, so, first question, we're going to Deliquis, right?"

"Yeah. Have you ever been?"

She shakes her head. "Like I said, I was mostly in Rydal space when I traveled."

"Yeah? What was in Rydal space?"

"My mom. She's a doctor, and she's fluent in Myyrash, so the embassy brought her on to make sure that humans on Rydal planets had access to expert medical care. I didn't live with her, but I went to see her in the summer sometimes." Her mouth twists up a little. "A month to get there and a month to get back for about three weeks on the ground. I hated it."

"What about your dad?"

"He died a few years ago, but he was on Arcadia before that. He and my mom were good friends and cared about each other, but it was a genetic viability match, so they didn't mind living far apart."

"So an AI took you to see her, not him?"

She smiles. "Exactly." There's a pause. "Is this when I ask about your mom, or are we not there yet?"

"We're off the original topic, which was Deliquis."

"So, not yet."

It does make him feel a little guilty. "I've never had to talk about it much."

"I guess not." She straightens up. "So, Deliquis. I guess we're seeing Monty and his boyfriend, right?"

"Yeah. We'll be there in about two days, assuming everything goes well."

"What would go wrong?" 

"The usual thing is malfunctions. This is a good ship, but it's old, and we tend to switch parts out as they break, not before. We've never been stuck doing emergency repairs for more than a day or two, and the communication grid is always my top priority to keep in top condition. Plus, Miller knows our route and our ETA, so if we're more than a day late and out of communication, he'll come looking for us."

"What are the unusual things?"

"We're in unaligned space, which is generally a little more dangerous. We stay close enough to human and Aranis territory that piracy isn't a big issue, but it does happen." He smiles. "That's another reason I've never upgraded the actual ship too much. Older models like this without any flashy parts don't tend to get as much attention. And it's not like we have much anyone wants, so it's good for everyone."

"Points for honesty, I guess. So, nothing goes wrong, we get to Deliquis. What next?"

"We'll try to stay for two nights, but only one full day, probably. If you want to sleep on the ground, you can probably stay with Miller and Monty. I'm going to, and Artemis and Hermes probably will too. Demeter and Hephaestus will sleep on the ship. You did a good job in Port Zeta, so Hermes asked for you again. He'll want to start introducing you around, getting you familiar with our contacts." It feels inevitable, so he just gives up. "Someone's going to ask if you're the new Octavia, probably."

Her face doesn't give anything away. "Am I?"

"Honestly? Yes and no." He leans back in his seat, closing his eyes. "Octavia's my sister. She used to be--the other human on the crew."

"What happened to her?"

"Nothing bad. She just didn't want to be here anymore. I, uh--I didn't take it well, when she told me. She talked about leaving all the time when she was a kid, even tried to run away once, before mom died. But she was eleven, so she didn't get far. I guess I thought she got over it, but--she was never happy here."

"How much younger is she?"

"Six years. She's twenty now."

"So nineteen when she left?"

"Yeah. She didn't run away, she told me she needed to leave and I--" He huffs. A year out, he can admit he could have done better. He wishes he had. "I didn't take it well."

"And that's where Artemis came from."

"Yeah. It was stupid. It wasn't fair to her."

"Which one?"

"Artemis. I think that's why she hired you, honestly. Because she was supposed to keep me company, and she knew--" He shrugs. "I didn't lie to her about why I set her up. It wouldn't have been fair."

"So Artemis and I are replacing Octavia together?" she asks, tone unreadable.

"No. That's how she started, but--she's never going to be my sister, but she doesn't have to be to be an important member of my crew and my family. And I didn't even know about you, so I don't get any blame for that one."

"What was it like for them?" Clarke asks. He opens his eyes to see her watching him, curious. "The rest of the crew, when Octavia left. They must have raised her too."

"They weren't surprised. Irrational optimism is kind of an organic thing," he adds, with half a smile. "They listened to what she said and saw what she did and concluded, okay, she doesn't want to be here, chances are good she'll leave. And she told them before they told me, so they'd be ready to deal the fallout. She did the best she could, when she finally left."

"So where is she now?"

"Neestia Minor, last I talked to her. She calls every few months, but she mostly stays off the grid, so I can't get in touch with her very easily."

For a second, it seems as if she's debating saying more, but all she does is nod. "Okay. Is there anything I should be expecting to hear about her? Anything you think I should know?"

The question is a relief, practical and divorced from emotion. He doesn't have anything else to say about Octavia leaving, honestly. She's gone, and he worries every day something is going to happen to her, but she's an adult. It's her decision. "I don't think so. Hermes told them she left, so he'll know better than I do. But it's not as if it's some huge scandal. She was nineteen, she decided to leave home and make it on her own. It's not hard to make it sound normal. Unless you're me," he adds, with a rueful smile.

"You did really well. The lingering trauma was pretty subtle. Barely noticeable."

That surprises a laugh out of him. "Wow, thanks. Really."

"What about your friends? Monty and--Miller?"

"Miller, yeah. And I thought Monty was your friend too."

"Yeah, but it's been a while. We got along in school, but I haven't seen him in a few years. And he left school to go into business with the weird guy he was dating so--"

"Yeah, I guess I'd be kind of worried about that. Miller's a good guy, I've known him for--" He considers. "I guess it's about eight years, a few months before my mom died. He tried to steal something from me in--I think it was Harra Mel? I was there for the weekend, actually on my own for once. It was around my birthday, and my mom paid for me to have a real vacation." He has to smile. "It was two days while she and O went to the other side of the planet, but it's still the longest I've ever been on my own."

"And you immediately got robbed?"

"By a kid a year younger than I was, yeah. He actually felt sorry for me."

She laughs, a bright, clear laugh. "That's how you became friends?"

"That's what he told me. He picked my pocket and saw what I had on me and said I was in the wrong neighborhood. He took me somewhere cheaper and bought me dinner, so we stayed in touch after that. If it makes you feel better, whatever he's doing now is way more legal than the other stuff he used to do. He and Monty mostly just trade in scrap metal and old tech and don't ask questions about where it came from."

"Is that what we're trading with them?"

"Some of it. I like dealing in the unaligned worlds because there's a good market for specialty goods. I pick up human stuff in Port Zeta, Haran stuff in Deliquis, Thessan stuff in Myra--"

"And then you sell it to whoever needs that stuff the next place you're going."

"Basically. That's how I get clients. Miller and Monty pay me to get them junk food."

"Junk food?"

"It's hard to get off world. Vids and stuff you can download, but spices, ingredients, even appliances. Monty paid me double for a rush job on a new rice cooker last year."

"I guess I just always assumed people got that stuff shipped," she muses, and he smiles.

"They do. What do you think we're doing?"

"You know what I mean. When I needed something I always got it on the net."

"My handling fees are usually lower. And I take trade. I bring an artist on Myra scrap from Miller, and they let me sell their stuff to galleries in Eden Point for a cut of the profits."

"I can see why you're not getting rich."

"I don't really care about getting rich. I assume you don't either or you wouldn't be working for room and board."

"I do get a small stipend from the agency."

He frowns. "Wait, really?" 

"I had training and everything," she says, a little smugly.

"Jupiter, I can't believe this is a real thing."

"The training isn't really geared as much to humans, but if I'd been with another kind of organic--"

"So this is a real job for you. Do they take you back after a certain amount of time or what?"

"This is more like a trial period. We see if I'm a good fit. If I am and I'm contributing to the crew, the assumption is you'll find a position for me. If it doesn't work out, we part ways, and the agency keeps me informed about other assignments."

"And I'm your first assignment, right?"

"Yeah. I had one other offer, but the guy definitely thought _therapy human_ was some kind of euphemism for sex work."

"It does kind of sound like that. No offense."

"None taken. But I wanted to make sure you knew it wasn't--"

"It's not like I had any expectations for this. I didn't know it was happening." He clears his throat. "I told Artemis there wasn't going to be any, uh--anything going on, but she was pretty evasive about agreeing. If it's going to bother you let me know and I can upgrade it to an executive order, but I'm hoping she won't make me."

Clarke smiles a little. "No, I'm not worried. They're cute."

"Don't let them hear you say that."

"I think they know you think they're cute, Bellamy."

"Why do you think I'm warning you? Make sure they don't find out or they'll run circles around you."

"I'll be careful." She taps her jaw, looking at him. "Exercise."

"Exercise?"

"All I've ever done is jogging, but you have a lot of equipment. Can you show me how to use it?"

Technically he has more to do, but they won't be in Deliquis for a couple more days, and he has plenty of time to get it done before then.

And Clarke is, apparently, a licensed therapy human. So he should probably do what she wants.

"Yeah, let me just grab Artemis. She's programmed with a lot of workout stuff, and if you want to learn to fight, she can train you."

"Should I learn to fight?" she asks. He can't quite read her tone, but he's leaning to be intrigued by that. Mystery is kind of novel, for now.

"You did say you were bored."

She laughs. "Yeah, I guess I'm not doing anything else. Let's see how it goes."

*

Deliquis is one of Bellamy's favorite planets, but for the first time, he's a little apprehensive about going there. He and Clarke haven't quite settled into a routine yet, but it feels as if it's going well, so far. She's curious about what he does and how he does it, and Hermes is optimistic about her potential as a trader. She's been working out with him and Artemis in the morning, helping Demeter cook dinner, and even learning about the ship's functions and maintenance from Hephaestus. 

In short, she's learning to fit in, and Bellamy's thrilled, but he's also a little anxious about her meeting Miller, and her apparently already knowing Monty. He still doesn't really know how to justify her presence on her crew without admitting he's still hurting from his sister leaving a year ago, when he's supposed to be fine.

"Deliquis is nicknamed Space Australia," Artemis says, bright, as Bellamy sends over their docking code and waits for his trajectory.

"Space Australia?" Clarke asks.

"Like the Earth continent Australia, Deliquis was once a penal colony. Also, it has a lot of wildlife that can kill you."

Clarke takes a moment to process this information. "How do you decide when to recite information formally and when to use slang?"

"I try to go for maximum dramatic impact. The pronunciation of Delinquis in Interstellis also sounds like the ancient Latin word _Delinquere_ , which is a fun coincidence for anyone familiar with human Romance languages, but it is just a coincidence. Deliquis is the closest most non-Haran organics come to being able to pronounce the real name."

"Are you going to do this for every planet we go to?" Bellamy asks.

"Only the ones Clarke has never visited. I am providing background and local flavor. Right?" she adds to Clarke, and Clarke nods.

"I appreciate it. Is something here going to try to kill me?"

"Not in the city," says Bellamy. "Humans and a few other organics can't breathe the atmosphere, so we'll be in a dome. If you leave that, you won't survive more than five minutes for about fifty different reasons."

"Exciting."

"Be a therapy human, see new places," he says. "It'll be fun."

Miller is waiting for them at the port, all his attention on his his data pad, but he still manages to look up before Hermes can sneak up on him. They do their secret handshake, and by the time the rest of them make it over, they're in an animated conversation about trade.

"Hermes loves Miller," Bellamy tells Clarke. "He wanted him to join the crew."

"It would have been perfect," says Hermes. "The two of us would be unstoppable."

"You couldn't pay me enough to live in space. Someone could," he adds. "Just not you."

"My profit projections said otherwise," says Hermes.

"Those were optimistic. And you're making me rude, be quiet." He gives Bellamy and Artemis hugs and then offers Clarke his hand. "The therapy human, right? Monty wanted to come get you to, but we got a call about a trashed cruiser he wanted to check out before anyone else got a crack at it."

It's not a total shock that Clarke would have told Monty she was coming, but it is a relief. Miller's going to make fun of him when they're alone, but that would have happened no matter what. At least this way, he doesn't have to give the explanation himself. 

"That sounds like Monty, yeah. Nice to meet you. Nate or Miller?"

"Either's fine. I guess if you're hanging out with Bellamy, he's going to get you used to Miller."

"You told me to call you Miller," Bellamy points out, starting them walking to the scrap yard. "You wanted to keep your true identity a secret. With your _last name_."

"Hey, it worked."

"What's your true identity?" Clarke asks. "Or is it still a secret?"

"My dad's a guard on Harra Mel."

"Head guard for the district where he tried to rob me."

"You were in the fucking richest district on the planet. Everyone there but you deserved to lose their stuff." 

"I probably deserved it too. You're just soft."

"Shut up. How's it going, Artemis? You watch that vid I sent you yet?"

"Yes! And I learned how to do the throw you liked. I can teach you, if you want."

"Awesome. Hermes, I've got some leads for you too."

"Good. Clarke is learning the ropes."

"Yeah?" Miller asks.

Clarke shrugs, although Bellamy thinks she's feeling a little out of place. She's been avoiding situations like this on the ship, preferring to interact one-on-one, and Bellamy guesses he can understand that. He always has trouble with strangers, but large groups of strangers who are already friends are the worst. He's never learned how to deal with those. "I need something to keep me busy, right?"

"Yeah, what does a therapy human actually do? Don't tell me you're actually trying to fix Bellamy. That's never going to happen."

"I'm fine, shut up."

Miller slings his arm around Bellamy's shoulders and squeezes, and Bellamy leans into it. Before Octavia left, he'd sleep with Miller and Monty sometimes, but he hasn't done it since then, and it seems unlikely that it's going to happen now, with Clarke here. But he always gets a lot of physical affection, at least.

"I'm just here to have skin," Clarke says, shrugging. "Humans like skin."

"Is that the actual creepiest way you could put that?" Bellamy asks. "Do they teach you that in therapy human class?"

"Therapy human class is about ninety-five percent _here's how Thessans work_ and then there was one day where they told us humans are the race most prone to loneliness, and they need to have the option of interacting with other humans."

"Yeah, I guess. But we're going to talk later. I think I'm the leading human expert on care and feeding of Bellamy Blake."

"Miller," he says, anxiety racing up his spine.

"Who's my competition?"

"No comment."

"We can do that later," Clarke says. "I want to hear about you and Monty. From my side, he basically sent out a message to all his friends that said, _Met a guy, quitting school, have a good semester_."

"That's about it, yeah. I was looking for a business partner, he answered my email. It was supposed to be a distance thing, just consulting, but he liked it more than school, and I liked him, so yeah. Like you said, he came for the semester break and just decided not to go back."

"It was disgusting," Bellamy puts in. "I was getting all these messages about how smart Monty was and how many good ideas he had and it was so fucking obvious what was happening."

"Yeah, tell me all about how good _you_ are at relationships. It didn't even take us that long, you're just bitter."

"Definitely true."

The conversation turns to general catching up; Bellamy comes through once every few months, and they talk every few days, so it never feels like they'll have much news, but communicating face-to-face is different. Mundane details are more interesting, anecdotes that never make it into text or vid-chats coming out in person. It never feels awkward.

Clarke and Hermes lag behind, talking shop, but she doesn't seem to mind. When she hears something she has an opinion on, she'll offer it, and she does seem excited about getting to meet more of their contacts.

He doesn't have to worry about her. She's fine.

Miller does a quick tour of their place, shows Clarke the room where she'll be staying so she can drop off her bag, and then she and Hermes get the parts they need to trade with.

Artemis considers, looking between Hermes and Bellamy, and then says, "You know what? I want to go shopping. The two of you can catch up. Do you know where Monty went? Can I find him?"

"I'll let him know to get in touch with you, sure."

Bellamy scowls at her while Clarke isn't looking, but Artemis ignores him, if she notices. And, really, it's not like he has anyone to blame but himself. It's what Octavia would have done too.

"Have fun," he says instead, and Miller waits to start the conversation until they're in the kitchen, with big steaming cups of tea. He even brings out cookies, so he's worried.

"So, this was Artemis's idea, right?"

"I might have done too good a job with that one," Bellamy admits.

"Yeah, I'm surprised Octavia didn't set a therapy human up before she left. But I guess she probably didn't know it was a thing either."

"I doubt it made it on her radar, yeah." He takes a sip of his tea, tries to weigh his curiosity versus the giving Miller the satisfaction of being right about things. But it's not much of a contest. "What did Monty tell you about Clarke?"

"Not much. He was surprised she was a therapy human, but mostly he said he liked her and he thought you guys would eventually get along."

"We get along now. What are you going to tell her?"

"About you? Depends on what she asks, I guess. I think this is good for you," he adds, looking serious. "You need to meet more people."

"One more person isn't a lot."

"I feel like you don't get how shitty you are at this."

"This being my entire life?"

"Kind of, yeah. Look, you're my best friend, you know that. And I love you. But you weren't okay before your sister left. You were paranoid and overprotective, and I get why, but now you're lonely and aimless and _still_ worried about her. You've _never_ been fucking happy."

He swallows past the lump in his throat, but his voice comes out as dry as he wants it to. "Wow. We should have heart-to-hearts more often. This is great for me."

"You think I'm wrong?"

Bellamy rubs his face. Miller is the leading organic expert on his life, knows more about him than anyone. He might know more about him than even his crew, because humans can make intuitive leaps about psychology that AIs can't. Even if the AIs have more encyclopedic knowledge of him, can recite every thing he's done every day for as long as they've known him, putting those things together into an accurate mental profile is a step beyond their capability. 

"No," he admits. "What do you want me to do about it? Lose the ship, move in with you? With Raven and Gina? I wouldn't know what the fuck to do with myself on a planet."

"You think I want you to live here all the time? Venus and Mars, I'd fucking murder you. I want you to think about what _you_ want for once. What does being happy look like for you?"

Bellamy looks down at his tea, stomach twisting. "You couldn't have put alcohol in this?"

"I'm serious."

"I can tell. It's weird." He lets out a long breath. "It's not Clarke's job to fix my life. It's just her job to--have skin."

"This doesn't have to be about Clarke. But if Artemis is going to start trying to fix you, I'm putting in my two cents too. Have you ever actually sat down and thought about what you _want_? You've been doing the same thing for your whole life, and it works for you. But your biggest ambition doesn't have to be fucking getting by."

"How long have you been sitting on this one?" The question doesn't come out with the dismissive tone he was aiming for; he sounds a little lost.

Miller leans over, presses his mouth against Bellamy's, his first kiss in over a year. It's an effort to not pull him back in, but he manages. It's a kiss to make a point, and the point is appreciated. It doesn't have to go farther than that. "Eight years since we met, right?"

"Something like that." He rubs his jaw. "I really thought I was doing better."

" _Better_ is a relative concept. You can be doing better and still not be doing well."

"You're such a ray of fucking sunshine."

"I _am_. I'm being so nice. This is me aggressively caring about you and wanting you to be happy. Don't get used to it."

"I won't. Thanks," he adds, soft. "I appreciate it."

"Any time."

He clears this throat, a definitive ending to the emotion. Or as close as he can get to one. "So, what are you telling Clarke? She's not my therapist. She's just--company."

"Good company?" Miller asks.

"So far, yeah. It's nice to have someone whose brain works the same way mine does. Or close enough, I guess. It's kind of nice to not really know how her brain works, actually."

"I get it, yeah. What do you want me to tell her?"

If Miller hadn't been so honestly worried, he'd let it go, but they might as well get everything out. "Whatever you think she needs to hear. But I want her to stay."

"Yeah?"

"It's nice having someone around, and you know I'm not going to get another therapy human if she leaves."

"And you like her. As more than just skin and a human brain."

"She's a good fit for the crew, and I like talking to her." He has to force the words out, but he does it. "It's _her_ , yeah. I wouldn't get along with just anyone."

"Definitely not. Glad you got a good one."

"My AIs know what they're doing," he says, but he finds he can't help a smile. "Yeah, me too."

*

The rest of the visit is less intense. Miller's said his piece, and he's done with that, at least with Bellamy. He gets some alone time with Clarke without much trouble, but that was going to happen no matter what, so Bellamy can't really worry about it. Miller's on his side. Miller worries about and loves him. It's not a surprise, but the vocalization of it is still a little jarring.

Maybe he's just not as good at hiding how he feels as he thought he was.

Hermes has more contacts to meet with in the morning and claims Clarke for that, so Bellamy puts off his own supply run until she's done. She brought things with her when she came on board, of course, but now that she's been on the ship for a few days, he assumes she has a better idea of what she'll need.

Besides, Artemis is a terrible shopping companion. She doesn't need food or clothing and just spends the whole time trying to convince him that she needs retractable swords in her arms.

So he's expecting an easy morning, a big lunch, and then an afternoon of shopping with Clarke. As days on Deliquis go, it sounds like a great one.

What he isn't expecting is Monty grabbing his arm and saying, "My turn, come on."

"Your turn for what?"

"Heartfelt one-on-one. Nate got his."

"Oh Mercury," Bellamy groans. "If you make me--"

"This one's about Clarke."

"Yeah, so was Miller's."

"No, his was about you." He waits until they're in the back and he's situated himself with what looks like a hydroponics unit, although not one designed for humans. Rydal, maybe. "You can give me tools."

"Awesome. What about Clarke?"

"I wasn't the only one who fell out of touch. I know I just left, but the two of us were still talking for a while. Then her dad died and she fell off the grid. I wasn't really surprised, it must have been really hard. The two of them were close. But I was still talking to other friends from school, and they said she was different there too. She left for a few weeks, and when she came back she finished early and just--I don't know. Whatever happened, it was really hard on her. So you should be careful with her too."

It's the last thing he expected to hear. Clarke is a little reserved, but she never seemed closed off. Which is maybe something he should try to learn; people won't ask about problems they don't know exist, and apparently he's obvious about it.

"I'm not going to hurt her," he says. "I'm not--"

"I know. I'm not worried. Just--I thought you should know. Clarke is probably the last person I ever would have expected to end up on an old trading ship as a therapy human. That just wasn't even on her radar. But she seems good."

"Did you talk to her about it?"

"She said she was sorry for being an asshole, so that was nice." He shrugs. "She said she was hurting, and she had to think about what she wanted. I could have pressed more, but you like projects, right? You can handle it."

"Thanks."

"I figure it's easier if you know there might be a problem. Clarke's not very--she doesn't always talk about this stuff. So you can be aware."

"I'm glad you guys are here to tell us how to look out for each other."

"What are friends for?" he asks. "You're really doing a shitty job giving me the tools I'm not asking for."

Bellamy snorts. "Yeah, wow, I'm an asshole. Which tool you aren't asking for do you need?"

"Socket wrench."

Bellamy hands it over. "You think she's okay?"

"Clarke? Yeah, she's always fine. But Nate says we're trying to hold happiness to a higher standard. So work on that, okay?"

"I'll see what I can do, yeah."

He doesn't know what he's supposed to say to Clarke about it, but she takes care of it for him, to his relief. "Monty talked to you, right?"

"Yeah. Miller talked to you?"

"Yeah. So at least we're even, right?"

He smiles. "Lucky break. I didn't even have to work to find a friend of yours."

Her own smile is soft, and maybe it makes sense that someone whose life was in good shape wouldn't be volunteering for a job like this. But he wants her to be happy. He wants this to be good for both of them. 

It even feels like it could be.

"Yeah," she says. "Very lucky."


	4. Myra

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be aware this chapter involves some references to coercion and non-consensual impregnation in Aurora's backstory. Nothing graphic and Bellamy doesn't know details to give, but head's up.

"You know what you don't have?"

Bellamy looks up from his book, eyebrows raised. "A lot of things. What were you thinking in particular?"

"A medical facility."

"I don't need one."

"Of course you need one. What do you do if you get sick?"

"I don't get sick."

Clarke nudges his foot with hers. "You must get sick. You go to dozens of planets in a standard year, there's no way you don't get sick."

"Not that sick. All the AIs come with basic medical training, and I have a first-aid kit. That's enough to get me to a port. It's not worth it to set up a full-time medical AI. Maybe next time I upgrade Hermes, he can get some medical software, if I can afford it."

Clarke props her chin on her hand, watching him with a smile. "Is there a mythological reason for that, or do you just think he'd have good bedside manner?"

"More of an in-joke." He still has trouble telling if she's actually interested in these things, but when she gives him a curious look, he goes on. "If I was getting a new AI to do medicine, I'd call him Apollo. He was the major god most associated with medicine. But Hermes had a staff, the caduceus. It had snakes on it, so at some point it got confused with the Rod of Asclepius, which belonged to Apollo's son, the actual god of medicine. And you know how symbols work. People use it like that long enough and that's what it means. So Hermes's symbol is still used on hospitals sometimes, even though it's supposed to be about commerce."

"Why do you think we do that? Not the mixup, I get that. But why do we still put all these old symbols on our buildings and our ships?" She smiles at him, teasing. "You're still naming your AIs after gods from a civilization that fell thousands of years ago. And it's not like you're the only one."

"Well, most of the western civilizations went into monotheism after that, so we don't really have later pantheons to choose from." He shrugs. "My mom told me other stories too, not just the Greek ones, but those were my favorites."

"Yeah. A girl I dated in college was into Norse mythology, if she ever got a ship she was going to name it Ragnarok."

"That's a pretty good name."

"I don't really know if I would want to ride around in something named after the end of the world." She nudges his foot again. "Seriously, medicine."

"Seriously, what about it? It's never been a problem."

They're about halfway to Myra, which, is, at twenty days, the longest single leg of their journey. He and Clarke are mostly used to each other--like each other, even--and she seems to feel fairly comfortable talking to him.

But he's not surprised she hesitates before she asks, "What about your mother? What happened to her?"

"Nothing a doctor could have fixed." He bites the corner of his mouth. On the one hand, he trusts Clarke as much as he trusts any of his friends, at this point. She's proven herself to be intelligent and reliable, and he doesn't really think she's going to react poorly to his life story.

But he doesn't tend to tell people. Raven set up some searches for him, key phrases that she added to her regular datastream scans, but she never asks many questions. She does her own research. Even Miller mostly put it together himself, with an assist from Octavia and Hermes, when the _Olympus_ showed up in Harra Mel needing a place to lie low for a few days after Aurora left. He still doesn't know every detail. 

Pluto, even Bellamy doesn't know every detail.

"This seems like it might be something I need to know," Clarke adds. The prodding is gentle, careful, but he can tell she means it. And she's probably even right.

"Have you ever heard of the Second Dawn cult?"

She straightens, expression turning serious. "Yeah, but I don't know much about them. It's kind of like a ghost story, I guess? Something parents tell their kids. _Be good or I'll sell you to the Second Dawn_. Sorry," she adds, and he readjusts his expression so he's smiling.

"Don't apologize. That's about what I thought you'd say." He runs his hand through his hair, choosing his words carefully. "There isn't a lot of actual child-selling. Or, you know." He makes a face, the words tasting bitter in his mouth. " _Financially motivated custody transfer_. Most of the people who join are in adults in pretty bad shape, either with or without families. They're poor, out of options, just wanting food and shelter. Something stable."

"Yeah, that's what I've heard. And your mom--joined?"

"When she was eighteen, yeah. It seemed like a good deal, but she was pregnant and starving. She didn't really think about what she was doing, she just signed the papers and took the food."

"No one reads contracts anyway," she teases, and he manages a smile.

"Yeah. So there's some issue with their planet, something about--" They taught him in school, even as young as six. _How our world works_. But he's forgotten so much. "I don't remember. But the birth rates were skewed about eighty-twenty male-to-female. So when my mom showed up, she agreed to attempt to have a certain number of children on a certain timeline, and that any girls she had would belong to Second Dawn."

"And she was already pregnant with you when she got there?"

"Yeah. They tested and found out I wasn't a girl, so they said they'd take me, and when I hit majority, I could stay or leave. But it's a fucking cult, so--"

"You would have been indoctrinated."

"That was the plan, yeah. Again, it all sounded kind of reasonable to my mom. She wasn't very well educated, and they had a good spiel about how important it was to keep the faith alive so they could help more people like her. And to keep the faith alive, you need mothers and daughters. After all the support she didn't get at home, it was nice to hear people actually being happy she was pregnant, welcoming her."

To his surprise, Clarke puts down her data pad and moves over on the couch. The usually sit on opposite ends, her on the left side and him on the right, a standard orientation that he doesn't mind. Having her suddenly in his personal space, her body warm and pressed firm against his, is more than a little jarring. 

Not bad, just jarring.

"Octavia's six years younger than you are, so they let her wait a while for the next one, too."

"Yeah. She had me, and it was a tough birth, so they gave her a while to recover. She said they wanted her to find a husband, but she didn't really fit in. And then, you know--" He shifts, wanting to get closer, and Clarke obliges. "She had a contract. She'd agreed to produce children. All she ever told me was that I was going to have a little brother or sister, but--it wasn't hard to figure out what happened once I got older. She didn't want it."

"Yeah." She finds his hand and squeezes. "You can skip this part if you want. I've got it too."

"That's about all I know anyway." He clears his throat. "The initial pregnancy scan gave an 85% chance the child would be biologically female. They were thrilled, but my mom knew what she'd be signing up her daughter up for. I don't know how she got the ship, but--she found the _Olympus_ , talked the owner into selling it cheap, got me out of the boys' dorms, and we ran."

"That's amazing. Awful, but--not many people get out of that. Not many want to. It's amazing you did."

"Yeah. I didn't get it at the time--honestly, I don't really think I got it until after she died. I didn't remember that well, and she didn't like to talk about it. I just knew that there people we lived with before weren't nice after all, they were looking for us, and they'd do terrible things if they found us. They'd who would take my sister." He clears his throat, trying to get the tears out of his voice. "And she got it even less. Octavia, I mean. She never even lived there. All she knew was that she wasn't even allowed to leave the ship."

"So she tried to run away."

"Yeah. I get it, but--fuck, it was so scary. My mom had other things to do, so it was my job to watch her. And to find her, when she got out. Every time, I thought they'd catch her, find us."

"Is that how they found you? One of the times she ran away?"

"No, thank the stars. Honestly, I thought that maybe they just weren't looking, but I guess my mom was better at hiding than I thought." His mouth tugs up a little. "I know I said her name was Aurora, but--that was actually the first name we picked, after we left. She figured new names would be safer, and if it was a new start, so she was going to be the dawn. That's Roman," he adds. "Not Greek. But I thought using Roman gods for the AIs would be confusing."

"Confusing how?"

"Because we named planets after them already. Vesta's somewhere in the Sol Galaxy. So are Ceres and Vulcan."

"And Mercury, obviously. Where did Bellamy come from, then?"

"It was my dad's surname. My mom liked him. He was just a Trader passing through, but--she wanted to remember him."

"So you changed your names, but they found you anyway?"

"It was--" He exhales. "It wasn't really my fault. She thought they wouldn't be looking for me. But they had a flag up for my DNA too, and when I hit majority, I registered for my ID, and--"

"That definitely isn't your fault."

"Yeah, well. They found me, and that lead them to her. She was on planet when it happened, and me and O were safe on the ship. She told them she lost the baby, they said they still had a claim to her anyway. She signed the contract, so they probably did." 

He's been getting closer to Clarke, and she doesn't seem to mind it at all, so he lets himself put his face in her hair. He's read about touch deprivation, about how people can be starving for contact, but it never occurred to him that he might be before. Now, it seems like about the only explanation for how he's feeling.

"They gave her five hours to clear up her--her whole life, I guess. She didn't even come to see us, she didn't want them to know where we were. She called me, told me what happened, and that was it. She transferred the AIs remotely, and she went back with them. I tried to follow her, but--she didn't tell me where she was either."

Clarke tangles her hand in his hair, rubbing gently, and he takes a few deep, shaky breaths. He still doesn't know how he got away from them sometimes, how he kept them from finding O, but he did. He got Raven to hack his ID, to make Octavia's herself. He changed their last name.

He did the best he could.

"She died a few weeks after they got her; Raven hacked their system and checked her file for me a few years back. It was kind of a relief, honestly. She would have had such a shitty life there." He lets out a shaky breath, and Clarke presses closer. "So I don't think a medical facility would have helped," he finally concludes.

She lets out a surprised laugh, gives his hair an affectionate tug. "Well, I still think we need one. That can be my thing."

"You want to be the ship's doctor?"

"I want to get some real medical supplies and set up some kind of clinic. It doesn't have to be fancy, but I bet you haven't gotten a comprehensive medical examination in years."

"Not that I can remember. I have immunizations," he adds. "I've got a contact in Point Eden who keeps those updated."

"Uh huh." Her voice is unconvinced, but she's still rubbing his scalp with gentle fingers, and it's basically the best thing that's happened to him in months, so it's hard to feel upset. He might fall asleep. "Hestia?"

"Yes?"

"Does Bellamy visit doctors regularly?"

"No."

"Do you worry about his physical health?"

"Yes."

"Hestia," he warns.

Even with his eyes closed, he can see the slow pulse of the lights as she considers something. He thinks about it too, and comes up with it right before she says, "I have told you seven times to invest in a medical scanner for the ship when you have been considering upgrades."

"See?" says Clarke.

"You're not allowed to gang up on me."

"Hand scanners aren't as expensive as ship installations," says Clarke. "I can give you a budget. How much I need to outfit a basic clinic. It's not a lot, and you can take it out of whatever you were going to pay me. I'll use it too."

"You don't have to pay for it," he says. "We can figure it out. Can you teach me to use all the stuff you're getting? How do you know how to use all the stuff you're getting?"

"My mom's a doctor, remember? I picked up some things." She pauses, but then she adds, "I was studying to be a doctor too. When I was in school."

"You owe me now, you know that?" He hasn't been putting much thought into what Monty said, about her father's death and whatever came after, not because he doesn't care, but because it didn't seem pressing. These things tend to come up when they're important. Clarke seems happy; he'd rather not threaten that. "If I ask you something, you should just tell me. You know everything now."

"I know." She sighs. "If you were living on the ship my mom used to break me out of a cult with the AIs who raised me, it would be a lot more relevant to your life."

"You can tell me if you want, that's all I'm saying." The lights are still pulsing blue behind his eyelids, so apparently Hestia is invested in the conversation. "Hestia?"

"Yes?"

"Do we have a room Clarke can use as a clinic?"

"Of course. How much space will this require?"

"Depends on how much Bellamy wants to spend. We'll figure it out. We still have ten days to argue about what constitutes a necessity."

"Understood. I have several options, I will review and make suggestions once you have finalized a plan for the clinic."

The blue lights switch off, and Bellamy makes himself lift his head off of Clarke's shoulder. "I could have other things to do, you know," he grumbles.

"Yeah, you've been so busy," she teases. "Sorry I want you to stay alive."

"You should be." But he can't keep up the light tone. "Really, um--thanks. It was kind of nice to talk about it."

"Sure." She grabs her data pad, but doesn't move out away from him, just settles in more comfortably. "Okay, so here's my list."

His smile feels kind of stupid, but she can't actually see him, so it's okay. "You already have a list."

"What do you think I've been doing for ten days? These are the bare minimum," she adds, pulling up the first file, and Bellamy rests his chin on her hair to listen as she talks him through it.

Against all odds, he thinks it's going to be a good day, in the end.

*

"Can I ask about romance, or are you going to tell me to stop?"

There isn't a lot of unused space on the _Olympus_ , but Clarke doesn't really need a lot of space, so Bellamy and Artemis are just cleaning out a one of the closets in the mess hall, while Clarke is off with Hephaestus reorganizing the engineering section. Apparently Bellamy is not efficiently using what space he has, and her other project is going to be reorganizing everything he owns.

He's been smiling a lot recently, and he's trying not to think about it.

"Romance in general?" he asks.

"You and Clarke have been touching a lot more. Why?"

_A lot_ feels like an overstatement to Bellamy, but it's a comparative term for Artemis. They went from almost no physical contact to regular casual affection, and he's not surprised the AIs are curious about that. He maybe should have taken them aside for a preemptive discussion about it.

"Because organics like physical contact. It might be a part of therapy human training, I'm not sure. But it's not an inherently romantic thing for us, you know that."

"I know. I want to know what makes it romantic. I perceive no interest between the physical affection between Miller and Monty and between you and Clarke. Or even between you and Miller, and you and he are sometimes romantic."

"Miller and I are sometimes sexual," he corrects. "You know better than to conflate sexual and romantic interactions."

"Sorry," she says. "In theory, I understand the distinctions. I can tell you the dictionary definitions and how they interact. But I cannot understand the emotional element, so I do not understand--" She cuts herself off, frustrated, and Bellamy takes pity on her.

"Humans don't get the emotional element either. It's a mess. I'm jealous of species with better social and reproductive systems than we have. But I know other species probably feel the same way about us, so--whatever."

"That was not helpful," Artemis says.

"I don't know how to help. What's the actual question?"

"How do you know when interest is romantic?"

"In general? We don't. Emotions are a fucking mess, okay? If you're lucky, you realize how _you_ feel. You missed most of my relationships, but I wasn't even sure of that half the time."

"I have been told."

"Yeah, I know you guys gossip about me. I never had much time for romance, so it wasn't a huge deal. Sex is easier for me. It's not hard to figure out if people want sex."

"Does Clarke?"

"Want sex? Maybe generally, but I don't think from me. She said she'd dated a woman before, so she might not even like men. Some humans care about their partners' gender, either for sex or for romance."

"So you just enjoy touching her?"

Bellamy exhales, counts to five. "Artemis."

"What?"

"Do you think I need to get laid?"

The pause is longer than he'd like. "Not in particular. That is sexual, and that does not seem as important for you at this time. I think you need love."

"I have love," he says, voice dry, but all he can really think is how _obvious_ he is. Miller knew, Monty knew, his AIs know. Clarke has definitely noticed.

What _does_ happiness look like for him? He hasn't been thinking about that either. If he's honest, he still doesn't know how to. But apparently it's something everyone else wants him to prioritize.

"But you need something," says Artemis, sounding frustrated. "You need more."

He puts his arm around her, squeezing gently. It's not something she particularly enjoys, but she likes the idea behind it, the affection and the support.

"So you just want to touch _everyone_ ," she grumbles.

He ignores her. "You don't have to do anything but be yourself, Artemis. I know you feel like it's your job to save my life, and I get why. But--if you want, Raven can turn that off. It's not fair to you."

Artemis shakes her head. "I like worrying about you. I would rather not stop."

"Thanks," he says, with a smile. "I appreciate it. I know you love me," he adds. "I'm really fucking lucky, okay? That's not my issue."

"Then what is?" she asks, in the same tone she'd ask how long it will be before they make it to Myra. As if it's a simple question, with a simple answer.

"I'm still working on that. Miller thinks I need to figure out what would make me happy."

"That seems like a reasonable first step."

"Yeah, well, it's probably going to take a while. But Clarke is good. I like having her around. So thanks. That was a good idea."

She brightens, delight written all over her face. "I thought so. I like having her here too. We all do."

"I owe you one," he says. "Now help me get this shelf out."

*

"So, Myra kind of sucks," he tells Clarke, and she raises her eyebrows. "I make good money there, that's the only reason I go."

"Your artist is there, right?"

"Yeah. Yarlink. They're Neesa, and I really like them, but on the whole Myra is not a great place. The climate sucks for humans and the laws suck for AIs. The government is Thessan, and Thessans don't believe in AI rights."

"Meaning what exactly?"

"Hermes can't deal on Myra. He's not allowed to serve as my independent representative. Which is why he doesn't really have any contacts for you. I make the deals with Yarl, and their art makes me enough money that it's worth it to go there just to see them, but we won't stay long, and none of the AIs will even get off the ship."

"Fun. Do you want me to wait on the medical stuff so we can get out sooner?"

"No, that's fine. I always spend the night. It's not good to be in space for too long. Yarl lets me crash with them, it's cheap. You can stay too, they already said so."

Clarke nods. "Okay, cool. Too bad for the AIs, though."

"It's not like they mind being on the ship for that long. Artificial air and gravity don't bother them."

"Still, I always get annoyed when I can't go on planets because of the local laws."

He raises his eyebrows. "How often does that happen?"

"Just a couple times when I was a kid. Human young are fragile, so some other species won't even let us on their soil. They don't want to risk us injuring ourselves."

"Wow, I missed that one."

"It's just a Gyra thing, as far as I know. My parents went a couple times on longer trips and I always had to stay on the ship."

"I've never had that. But Octavia did."

"How did you get her time off the ship? If you were hiding her?"

"Smuggled her in at night. She'd get to sleep on the ground, see the sun a little. I'm not saying I don't get why she hated it," he adds, and Clarke shrugs one shoulder. 

"I get it too, but that doesn't mean she was right."

He shifts a little, uncomfortable. "I don't think anyone was really right or wrong. I don't know if I could have lived like that or not. And it was her decision if she wanted to."

"No-win situation?"

"Yeah, that's a good way of putting it. Hestia?"

"Yes?"

"Do we have docking instructions yet?"

"Still waiting. Traffic."

He huffs. "I fucking hate Myra."

"You say that every time we come here," says Hestia. "Sometimes twice."

"Every time?" Clarke asks, sounding gleeful.

"The profanity varies," says Hestia, fair as always.

"It's because I really hate Myra."

"But your friend is worth stopping for?"

"Their art is amazing. And they are expecting these parts. It's worth it, just--"

"You fucking hate Myra."

"Basically. And it stresses me out leaving the whole crew behind. I don't even know why. It doesn't make any sense. We usually split up, so it should make me feel better that everyone else is together."

"Not everyone," Clarke says, after a short pause. "I'll be with you. If anything happens to the ship, we'll figure it out together."

It's his turn to pause, opening his mouth and then closing it. "Is this part of your therapy human training?"

"What?"

"I feel like you always know what's wrong with me."

"Maybe I just get you," she says, with a smile, and his heart gives an unwelcome thump in his chest.

The lights turn blue. "We have docking confirmation. Landing bay twelve. Confirm docking?"

"Confirm," says Bellamy. "Ready to fucking hate Myra?"

"Can't wait."

To be fair, there are a lot of things Bellamy dislikes about Myra. The AI laws are the worst of it, but he'll admit he finds it fairly unappealing as a planet. The atmosphere isn't toxic enough to require humans to make their own environments like on Deliquis, but he kind of wishes it was. The air is always heavy and thick with some strange fog. By the time they get to Yarl's, they'll be damp and sticky and irritable.

But he'll admit it's nice to have Clarke suffering with him.

"You're right, this sucks," she says, wiping her eyes. "What is this?"

"I don't remember, but I hate it. And it's not safe for humans to be outside in it for more than two hours. Most houses have air purifiers, so once we get inside, we'll be fine."

"Do they have showers?"

"Yarl has a whole decontamination area."

"How did you ever stay here long enough to find them?"

"I didn't. They used to live on Amaterasu, and then they moved here. Honestly, I still haven't forgiven them."

Clarke smiles. "Yeah, I can see why not."

Yarl's only been on Myra for about two years, but the yard of their house looks as if it's been accumulating scrap for decades. Honestly, if he had to pick between Miller and Yarl for the junkyard owner, he's not sure he'd get it right.

"This is it," he tells Clarke.

"I can't believe they need _more_ metal," she says, and he laughs.

"Miller gets them the good stuff, I guess. Have you met any Neesa before?"

"No, but I know what they look like. I won't scream or anything."

"You say that now," he says, and pushes the button for the door.

The first thing humans tend to notice about Neesa is their size. They're about as large as horses, with a similar build, and four more limbs. They actually remind Bellamy of centaurs, but the body part looks a lot more like an insect than a mammal, and although their arms and heads are free from the protective armor on their bodies, they still don't really look like humans.

He likes them anyway. He might just be used to them.

"Bellamy!" says Yarl. Their grin is obvious to him, but Clarke tenses at his side. He moves closer so their sides are brushing, feels her relax at once. She'll be fine. "And this must be the new crew member."

"This is her. Clarke, Yarl. Yarl, Clarke. Can we come in?"

"Same priorities as ever. A pleasure to meet you, Clarke. Come in out of the atmosphere."

Yarl doesn't need to go through the cleaning unit, so Bellamy takes Clarke over, lets her step through first and then follows himself. It's not exactly designed for organics who wear clothing, but it gets the job done, and he feels so much better as soon as he's out.

"Thank you as always for making the trip," Yarl says, as they lead him and Clarke to the sitting room. Their couch is a little beat up, but since they never use it, he can't really blame them for not putting a lot of money into it. They bring hot _joppa_ , which Clarke accepts with a smile, and some fresh fruit, and settle in on their own furniture.

"Fuck you as always for moving to Myra," he says, and Yarl lets out their own version of laughter.

"I did not take your needs into account at all." They sip their own beverage. "That reminds me, your sister says hello."

Bellamy freezes with his mug halfway to his lips, and Clarke presses her shoulder against his. "Octavia?"

"Did you obtain another sister? Yes."

"When did you talk to her? Is she here?"

Yarl makes a slightly distressed sound, and Bellamy reminds himself that for all they know, Octavia left without any drama or fanfare, a normal part of life. "No, she is on Neestia Minor. She reached out to me for contacts, I put her in touch with an artist friend of mine. I told her I would be seeing you, and she sent her regards. She plans to call you soon. Did something happen?"

"No, nothing happened. I just haven't heard from her in a little while myself. I thought she would have told me if she was nearby. She knows my route pretty well."

"Oh, no. Nothing like that. She seems to be doing well."

"Glad to hear it." He considers. "I'm surprised she wanted contacts from you, honestly."

"I was as well. She has been working as a body guard, so she thought I might know someone needing to travel. I have lived away from home long enough I do not know many Neesa on the homeworlds, but Lincoln has been traveling recently, and I believe she will make a good companion for him."

"That's good, I'm glad you could help her out." 

"I am sorry if I upset you. I thought the news would be welcome."

"It is," he says, genuine. "I'm glad to hear she's doing well. If she gets in touch again, tell her to call me."

"I will." 

There's a slightly awkward pause, and Bellamy wishes he knew the perfect thing to say about this. Even an imperfect thing would do. But the discomfort lingers, thick in the air, and he doesn't know how to get rid of it.

Clarke's the one who says, "Is that one of your pieces?"

Yarl blinks their back set of eyes. "Which?"

Clarke gestures to a small orb of twisted metal, and Yarl makes a pleased sound. "Yes, that is one of mine."

"May I touch it?"

"Please, of course. My pieces are built sturdy."

Clarke smiles and stands, going over to examine it carefully. Bellamy considers himself a fan of art, in the most general sense. He enjoys looking at it and thinks it's amazing, what organics can do with it, but he is by no means a connoisseur. At best, he's an enthusiast, but his interest levels often don't go that high. Yarl's work has always been something he enjoys, because he likes the look of raw metal, and he often sees the pieces before they're used, so he can appreciate the work that goes into turning them from trash into art.

But this is clearly another thing that Clarke has studied, yet another addition to an ever-growing list. In a way, it's easy to simply appreciate: she has expertise he doesn't. Most of it isn't particularly practical, but he has more than enough practical knowledge, even without his specialized AIs.

Art is definitely filling in a gap for him.

The change in conversation is enough to get them over the awkwardness, and they move onto other things. Yarl has been doing well, started seeing a Thessan, and the relationship is progressing slowly, but they feel optimistic about where it's going, which is nice. Part of why they left Amaterasu was a bad end to their previous coupling, and he's happy to see them getting back on their feet.

"What about you?" they ask.

"What about me?"

"How long have the two of you been together?"

It takes both of them a second, and then they trip over each other correcting her. "Oh, I'm not--" says Clarke, just as he says, "She's on the crew, not--"

"Oh!" says Yarl. "I apologize, I did not realize--"

"No, that's fine," he says. "I should have explained. I understand the confusion. It's not a problem."

They fidget, their second set of legs twitching. "It is a slight problem. My assumption means that I did not clean out the old guest room. I know coupled humans prefer to share, I thought there would be no need."

"No, that's fine," Clarke assures them. "It's an easy mistake to make, and sharing is fine for uncoupled humans too. Don't put yourself out on our account."

"Are you sure?" they ask. "Bellamy?"

"Yeah, no problem. It's my fault, I should have been clearer." He's been trying to avoid saying the actual words _therapy human_ as much as possible, mostly out of embarrassment, but over vid, with translators involved, and the general differences between human and Neesa body language, he can easily imagine how it could have come across wrong. 

He should just suck it up and tell people who she is, really, but he thought it would be more of a pain to explain to Yarl. This seemed simpler.

"I apologize regardless," says Yarl. "I believe the bed is large enough for both of you."

"Should be, yeah. Assuming it's my usual room."

"It is. Do you have business to attend to tonight?"

"I figured tomorrow. Why?"

"I thought Clarke might be interested in seeing my workshop."

Clarke lights up, and Bellamy waves them away. "I'll take our stuff upstairs and get settled in. Do you need anything, Clarke?" 

"I won't make you go outside again." She hesitates for a second, worrying her lip, but all she does is reach over and give his hand a squeeze while Yarl isn't watching.

Then she follows them outside, and he's alone again, feeling a little at odds. His first impulse is to tell Artemis, because he feels as if he should tell _someone_ , but as soon as the thought crosses his mind, he dismisses it for the absurdity that it is. He doesn't need to tell anyone anything. It's not a big deal.

The bed, when he gets to it, is plenty large enough for both of them, and it's not like he really thinks Clarke is going to suffer spending a night with him. But it still feels oddly like getting away with something.

It's because he's excited, he realizes suddenly. He thinks it's going to be nice.

"Fuck," he mutters, scrubbing his face, and calls Artemis anyway.

"What?"

"Is that how you answer calls from everyone?" he asks.

"No, just you. Is there a problem?"

"No, everything's fine. I just wanted to see how you were doing. Everything in one piece?"

"I know you believe we would be able to care for the ship ourselves if something happened to you," she says, prim. "So it is completely irrational that you worry like this when you leave. There are more of us here than there usually are during planetary visits. What do you think will happen?"

"I have no idea. Humans are irrational."

"I know. We are trying to fix you."

"I appreciate it. So you're good over there?"

"Everything is fine. Hermes is excited for Clarke to make purchases, since he usually cannot. Demeter wants you to get her some spices, she sent the list. Stop worrying."

"Got it." He worries his lip. "Get me everyone, will you?"

"Everyone?"

"Yeah."

"Hestia, activate all comms for Bellamy."

"Activated," says Hestia. "Hello, Bellamy."

"Hey. Just letting you guys know, O got in touch with Yarl the other day."

"Why?" asks Hestia, at the same time Demeter says, "How is she? Is she well?"

"She's fine, yeah. She was still in Neestia Minor, so she wanted to get contacts from Yarl. So now she might be working as a bodyguard for one of Yarl's artist friends, Lincoln. So Hephaestus, can you ask Raven to find him and add her to her alerts for me?"

"I will," says Hephaestus.

"Great, thanks. And they said we might be getting a call from her soon, so--here's hoping. Anything Clarke or I need to do that you haven't mentioned? Last minute notes?"

"Are you having fun?" asks Artemis.

"A blast," he says. "Thanks."

"Do you fucking hate Myra?" asks Hestia, and that one does make him laugh, just a short, sharp burst of it, almost against his will.

"Shut up. Bellamy out."

*

"So, is this actually okay?"

It's Clarke who finally cracks and says it, but he's pretty sure they were both just waiting for the right moment.

"I don't mind," he says. "I don't really think it's a big deal."

"No, not really." She bites the corner of her mouth. "What about the stuff with your sister? Is that okay? You seemed a little spooked, but I didn't want to upset Yarl asking about it."

"It's good news. Working as an artist's bodyguard sounds a lot better than the last job she told me she had."

She sits on the edge of the bed, watching him. "What was that?"

"Bouncer at an underground fighting joint."

He can see her thinking over the next question before she finally asks it. "She doesn't worry about Second Dawn at all?"

"From what I can tell, she doesn't worry about anything," he says, the grumbling second nature. But the question deserves some real reflection. "I don't know if she needs to, honestly. I've never been sure."

"It seems like they can't actually have any legal claim to her. Parents aren't really supposed to be able to do stuff like that, sign their children away forever. Once she reached majority, any legal claim they had to her would be gone. Your mother couldn't give her up in perpetuity."

"Yeah, that's what I thought." He gives up, flops down on the bed next to her. He's still fully clothed and isn't sure what he's going to wear when he does go to sleep, but he's too worn out to remain vertical for now. "I have no idea. I can't stop thinking they still want her, though. They're so protective of women, I still remember. And they came for my mom after all those years, so--"

After a second, Clarke lies down next to him, rolls in so she can put her arms around him. The relief of it is profound and instantaneous, the stress draining out of him as the warmth of her seeps in. He closes his eyes, letting himself bury his nose in her hair.

"I'd worry too," she says. "I've been worrying."

"Like you said, I don't think the contract to keep her could hold water, not once she reached majority herself. But if they got her, I don't know how I'd get her back. I don't think I could just go in and tell them they didn't get to keep her. I'd have to find a lawyer, dispute the contract, and who knows what they would have done to her by then."

She gives him a gentle squeeze. "But they think she's dead, right?"

"That's what Raven says."

"And she still knows to be careful."

"I hope so. When she left, she told me she knew the risks, and that she was never going to let them take her."

It's quiet, just the two of them breathing for a long minute, and then she finally says, "I assume that's not a much of a comfort. Your mother thought that too."

"Yeah, exactly." He huffs. "Seriously, at some point, you need to start letting me do stuff for you. I know you're my therapy human or whatever, but this is so one-sided."

"Who says this isn't helping me?" She moves closer, nudging her nose against his neck, making him shiver a little. "If I need to talk about it I will, but--I feel so much better."

"Already?" he asks.

"It's been, what? Thirty-five days?"

It feels too long and too short all at once, an incomprehensible amount of time no matter how he tries to think about it. 

"Something like that," he agrees, and she nods. 

"Definitely long enough to help."

"But if there's anything you need--"

"I know." She rolls out of his arms, careful, and he makes himself get up, instead of pulling her back to him like he wants to. "We should actually get in the bed."

"That's an idea, yeah. What do you, uh--what do you sleep in?"

"I just brought a long shirt." She looks him up and down, smirking a little. "I know you sleep in your underwear, don't pretend you don't."

"I was going to wear a shirt."

"Don't put yourself out on my account," she says, but her smugness fades into nervousness almost immediately. "But if you'd feel more comfortable, you should--"

He tugs the shirt over his head and casts it aside, and Clarke grins and turns around to strip out of her own clothes. They meet back at the bed again, and he gestures for her.

"Pick your side."

She flops down. "Full disclosure, I'm planning to sleep on top of you."

It's dark, so he hopes she can't see his smile, huge and uneven, as he joins her. "You are?"

"Artemis asked me if I like physical affection. I decided I do."

"She's not bothering you, right? She didn't say anything--"

She rolls over, back into the same position as before, her face against his neck and her arms around him. "I told her you're very good at hugging. Then she wanted to know what made someone good at hugging or bad at it, so I tried to talk her through that. She's not bothering me at all."

He lets his arm wrap around her back, tangling in her hair. If this is how she wants him to help her, he can live with that. He could be great at this.

"Just making sure. Sleep well."

"You too," she says, sounding as if she's already half asleep. "Night."

"Goodnight."

Maybe Myra isn't so bad after all.


	5. Amaterasu

"You're right,” says Clarke. "Yarl never should have moved."

"I agree," says Artemis. "If we ever decide to stop living on a ship, I think we should live on Amaterasu."

"Is that something we're talking about now?" Bellamy asks. "What we'd hypothetically do if we stopped living on a ship?"

"I was just agreeing with Clarke. Amaterasu is nice. If that ever is a conversation we have, Amaterasu should be a place we talk about."

"Agreed," says Hermes.

"I'll keep that in mind. But I was sort of thinking we'd stay in space for a while."

"Me too," says Clarke. "Space works for me."

"I meant later," says Artemis. "When you are old."

"I can still fly when I'm old." He looks up, letting the sun warm his face. "But we could spend more time here, maybe."

He's been in a good mood in the two weeks since they left Myra, but he can't deny that being on Amaterasu puts him in an even better one. The sun is bright and the air is clear, the planet green and lush. It's how he imagines Earth would have been at its best, before humanity fucked it up so badly.

"Who are our friends here again?" Clarke asks, which is nice too. _Their_ friends. She's a part of the crew. His friends are hers now.

"Raven Reyes and her girlfriend, Gina Martin."

"Bellamy's ex-girlfriend," Hermes supplies.

"Which?" asks Clarke, sounding curious.

He considers that. "I think only Gina was an official relationship. Raven and I never did any labels."

"Do you have sex with all your human friends?"

Her tone is amused, so he doesn't worry she's opposed to the idea. Not everyone is built for casual sex, and sometimes people who prefer a commitment have trouble understanding people who don't. Bellamy does _like_ sex in the context of a relationship, of course, he just also likes it outside of that. It's fun regardless, when he's in the mood for it.

"Just the ones who want to," he says, with a shrug. "But apparently that's a lot of them." If the AIs weren't around, he'd offer to sleep with her too, but Artemis would definitely never let him live it down. "Raven's my tech expert. Between her and Monty I've never had a problem with the ship or the AIs I couldn't fix." He drops his voice a little. "And she's monitoring Second Dawn stuff for me."

"General monitoring, or just keywords?"

Not for the first time, Bellamy is profoundly grateful that Clarke is the therapy human he ended up with. Having actually gone online and researched the license she has, it's pretty clear that a lot of her skills are about _her_ , not her training. Clarke just seems to have a good understanding of what he needs to hear, and that seems to be inherent to her.

Maybe she's this good with everyone, but he kind of hopes they're just good with each other. He thinks they are.

"Both. She likes to know what they're doing too. I think she wants to take them down someday."

"Yeah? Good for her. It's--" She huffs. "It's absurd that we act like these things are okay, that it's not worth intervening. They're powerful enough and take advantage of poor enough people that they can get away with it, but--we _shouldn't_ just let that go. We should be better."

"I didn't know you cared so much," he says, surprised, and she colors.

"Honestly, I didn't. I never really thought about it at all before you told me about your mom. But I've been doing some reading in the last few weeks, and it's just--it's so fucked up. Everything about it. And I never even thought about it. Stuff like that, Second Dawn and labor planets, even the stuff you were saying about what happens to AIs after their humans die. It's all the same--" She waves vaguely. "It's all so shitty, you know?"

"I know, yeah."

Her smile is sheepish. "Yeah, I'm preaching to the choir, I know. But I grew up rich and privileged, it's easy to just never think about this. So--I want to do better. If you've got any ideas."

"Something to ask Raven. It's more her thing." He hesitates, but it's warm and Clarke is smiling in the sunlight. He thinks she trusts him. "How rich are you, anyway?"

"Personally?"

"What other way is there to be rich? You can't have someone else do it for you."

"I'm not _rich_ ," she says. "When my dad died, I ended up with the maximum amount of inheritance possible on Arcadia, but that's not that much compared to what he actually had. And my mom is--my mom is _really_ rich."

"I guess an in-demand doctor working in Rydal space would make good money, yeah. But you and your mom don't get along."

"It's not like you're thinking."

"Well, since you haven't told me anything, I have to guess," he teases, and Clarke smiles.

"It's fun, right?"

He snorts. "Sure, fun."

Apparently, that's enough to make her anxious, worrying her lip a little as she thinks about her next words. "When my dad died, it was--I think she could have helped, and she didn't. From what I can tell, she made it worse. Not--it's not her _fault_. But he could have used her, and she didn't do anything, and I still don't understand why."

"Did you try asking?"

"Every time we talk now it turns into a fight." She huffs. "It doesn't even make _sense_ , I don't know how--I guess it's maybe just the distance, but it feels like we're speaking different languages. And she offered to pay for me to come see her, but--she didn't even come to his funeral. So it turned into this kind of stupid pride thing, I guess."

"You won't see her and she won't see you?"

"Something like that. And just--I guess when my dad died, I ended up thinking about how few people I really felt like I could rely on. And how my mother wasn't actually one of them." She bumps his shoulder. "Why do you think I didn't want to tell you? It doesn't really compare, as a problem."

"That's not really how problems work," he says. "I don't want to know about this stuff because I'm keeping score. You're my friend. Of course I want to know about you."

Her hand finds his, and she gives his fingers just one quick squeeze before she lets go again, a burst of affection as warming as the sunlight. He's been trying very hard to _not_ think too much about that, to ignore the way her touches make his heart race and his stomach churn. It's been a long time since he was attracted to someone like he is to Clarke, if he ever has been, and he's doing his best to ignore it, hoping that without his encouragement, the feelings will die the quiet death they need to. 

It hasn't worked yet, but he's still hoping. Clarke was clear about her lack of interest in romance; the least he can do is listen to the unambiguous message.

"I'll tell you everything later," she promises.

"Without us?" Artemis demands, and Clarke shrugs her shoulders.

"I saw you trying to stay quiet so I'd forget you were here. Good effort, but it didn't work."

"We are your friends too," says Hermes. "We want to know about you."

"I know. There's not a lot to tell, but I'll tell you later too."

"Whenever you want," says Bellamy. "No rush for any of us."

"You know I get a lot of mixed messages about this from you, right?"

"You do not," he says, and she smiles.

"Yeah, I know I can take as long as I need." 

Hermes' comm beeps, and he steps aside to take the call, Clarke lagging behind to see if he needs her. They know where Raven lives, so he and Artemis just keep walking, Bellamy refusing to let himself turn back to watch them. Sunlight is a good look on her; he doesn't need that right now.

It's not a big deal.

"Are you coming?" Artemis calls, when they're almost out of earshot, and Hermes waves his hand.

"Garyn has a good deal for us! Go ahead! Tell Raven I miss her!"

"I know, I know."

He's expecting some sort of Clarke commentary from Artemis, but he's pretty sure that's mostly a guilty conscience, combined with a somewhat adolescent desire to talk to _someone_ about his stupid feelings. Miller's an option, but starting the conversation himself seems like a step beyond what he's willing to do. Pretending he isn't interested in Clarke doesn't work nearly as well when he's the one who starts the conversation about said feelings.

Luckily, Raven opens her door, takes one look at him, and says, "Where's your girlfriend?"

"Nice to see you too. Been a while. How's the leg?"

"Still fucked up. Seriously, where's the new girl?"

"Her name is Clarke, not _new girl_ or _Bellamy's girlfriend_. And she and Hermes are doing something with one of his contacts, so now is a perfect time for me to tell you not to be weird."

"Miller said if you weren't together by the time you got to me, I should kick your ass."

"It's only been like a month since I saw him. I'm kind of shocked he has so much faith in my ability to get a girlfriend. He should know better."

"So you're working on it but you can't seal the deal? Yeah, that sounds right." She pulls him in for a hug. "How's it going?"

"Surprisingly well. She's not threatening to leave the ship and I think she likes it, so--well, yeah."

"Artemis?"

"What, you don't believe me?"

"Second opinion."

"It was my idea," she says, smug. "So of course it was a good one. Clarke is great. But she is not going to be Bellamy's girlfriend."

He's pretty sure Artemis doesn't notice his slight wince, but Raven does. "No?"

"She said she was not interested in romance. She was unambiguous. Bellamy says I am not allowed to ask her about it further."

"Manners," he says. "That's a thing."

"Okay, I got it. Artemis, go say hi to Gina in the kitchen. I'm going to grill Bellamy and fill you in when I'm done."

"Deal, thanks."

Raven's leg really is fucked up, so she brings him to the living room to sit instead of lingering in the hall, studying him carefully once they're settled.

"You know how you talk about her, right?"

"Not really. How do I talk about her?"

"Like she's a fact of life or something. It's different for you. I remember when I hooked up Artemis, it was like six months before you talked about her just--casually."

"And you're saying I'm better with Clarke?" he asks, agog. It feels as if every time he brings he up he's wading through land mines of awkwardness.

"Once you told me she existed, yeah. I get why you feel weird about the therapy human part, but after that was done it was just, Clarke said this, Clarke thinks that. She's already part of the family, and that's not how you are with humans."

"I don't get much of a chance to be like that with humans."

"You could just talk to me about your feelings like a normal person, you know that, right? I'm offering. Take advantage of it now before you're back in space with your AIs and the therapy human you're falling in love with."

"I'm not," he protests, but it's weak. This doesn't happen to him a lot, but he does know the signs, and ignoring them as hard as he can hasn't actually stopped the progression. "She's not interested, and I want her to stay on the crew and not be awkward. So I'm not going to be."

"Because of what Artemis said? Is she aro?"

"I don't think so, she said she had a girlfriend before. But we haven't talked labels yet. We're coworkers, so it doesn't really matter, right?"

"Shipmates are never just coworkers, you know that. Intimacy always develops, one way or another."

"I know." He rubs his face. "When I hired her, she said she wasn't interested in romance. That wasn't why she was joining up. Apparently some people assume therapy humans are supposed to be romantic or sexual companions. She cleared it up. That's not why she's doing this."

"I'm not going to tell Artemis about this, so don't worry. But you're organic, you get how emotions works. She was setting boundaries. That doesn't mean she can't change her mind."

"I know. But it's her boundary. If I try to push it, I'm an asshole."

"Telling her you're developing feelings for her isn't an asshole move. If I were her, I'd want to know that."

"What if she doesn't want to stay?" he asks, and his voice comes out so lost.

Raven shifts down to sit next to him, putting her arm around his shoulders, and he leans into her.

"I don't even know if she's--she might be female-exclusive."

"Oh, we can handle that."

"Handle what, exactly?"

"We're taking you to a party tonight."

"Fuck, why?"

"Because it might be fun, why else? It's a block party so it's not like it's about hooking up, but Amaterasu requires preference bands for all public gatherings to prevent harassment."

"If we go, I'm taking _not interested_ and I bet Clarke will too."

"So I'll ask her."

"Raven."

"What? It's not like it's impolite. You can't do it, but I can."

"It's not a big deal."

"But you are falling for her."

"Yeah. Don't fucking tell Artemis."

"I won't. How long are you here for again?"

"Three days. We want a break and your planet is nice."

"Okay, so--I've got three days to get to know her. I'll tell you what I think you should do after you're gone."

"Thanks. Really," he adds. "Because I don't have a fucking clue."

Raven rubs his scalp, fingers soothing, but it's not as nice as when Clarke does it.

Feelings suck.

"I know," she says. "We've got you."

*

In the kitchen, Gina is making something to bring to the block party, Artemis chattering about how things are going as she helps with the prep. Gina gives him a kiss on the cheek, but her hands are dirty, so she postpones the hug until she's done with food.

"It smells amazing," he says. "Do you need more help?"

"Not from you. I remember how bad you are at cooking."

"I never had to learn," he grumbles. "Demeter wouldn't let me help, just taste things for seasoning."

"AIs are better at chopping and measuring than organics," Artemis says. "It is a simple fact."

"But you can't taste it," Gina tells her.

"If organics write their recipes correctly, we do not need to taste them to know they are good. I know this will taste good because you are making it. So you could tell me every step and it would taste just as good as if you made it yourself."

"The seasoning varies depending on the other ingredients. Sorry, I'm going to give organics the edge in actual cooking. You're better at a lot of things, don't be greedy," she adds, with a grin.

Watching his friends get to know Artemis has always been strange for Bellamy, in large part because he was expecting it to go badly, especially with Raven. Raven told him not to get her in the first place, but she still helped him. He put Artemis together right here on Amaterasu, in this very house, and despite their reservations, they've never been anything but welcoming to her. She's everyone's kid sister in a way Octavia never quite was, and it's nice and painful all at once.

Everyone knew Octavia was never going to stay, even him, somewhere deep down. And as much as he likes that he has someone who will now, he doesn't like to think about what it says about him, that the only people he gets to the keep are the ones who, somewhere deep in their basic coding, aren't allowed to want to leave.

"I think would like it if I could eat sometimes," Artemis muses. "Not as often as you have to, that kind of regular fueling seems like a pain. And with the desire for it to taste good, that is just so much effort to just keep yourself alive. But the basic act is interesting."

Bellamy huffs a laugh. "Yeah, it's a pain. Dying always sounds like such a great alternative."

"You know what I mean," Artemis says, and he grins at her. "What did you and Raven talk about? You said you would tell me." 

"Bellamy explained how he doesn't have a girlfriend," says Raven.

"Oh, you don't?" asks Gina. "That's too bad. I thought she sounded nice."

"I don't know if _nice_ is the first word I'd use. She's great, really valuable addition to the crew, and I'm glad we have her. But she's not my girlfriend, and everyone can stop assuming she's going to be."

"Noted," Gina says. "Do you want to have sex while you're here?"

"Thanks, but no thanks," he says. 

"How long's it been?" Raven asks, cocking her head at him.

"Why do you care? It's my sex life."

"Because you _like_ sex, and I don't think you've had any since your sister left. If it's some masochistic way of punishing yourself, that's stupid, and you should come get laid before your therapy human gets back."

"It's not like that. It's not a punishment."

"So what is it?"

"It's just not--I don't want to. Major life events can shift your sexual preferences. When my mom died, having sex helped me deal with it. It was a good distraction. But it's not helping now. It's not what I want." He tries out a teasing smirk, thinks he even manages it. "But if you really _want_ to fuck me--"

"We're getting by fine without your dick. But thanks for offering."

"You too. Can we talk about literally anything else now? What's this party we're going to? How's the cafe, Gina?"

They chat about inconsequential things until Clarke and Hermes show up, and then it's introductions, Clarke giving slightly guarded answers about her own history as she gets to know Raven and Gina. It's more comfortable than Deliquis was, probably because he and Clarke are more comfortable with each other. They're a team now, and Clarke doesn't seem as unsure where her alliances lie. It helps that she and Raven hit it off immediately, and by the time they're heading over to the party, it feels like all four of them are friends spending time together, not like Clarke is an outsider.

Athena and Hermes went back to the ship to try and convince Demeter and Hephaestus to join them, but, as expected, only Demeter agreed to come. They're exploring on their own but planning to meet up later, and Bellamy feels nothing but warm contentment at the thought. It feels as if it's going to be a good night.

"Clarke, what band do you want?" Raven asks. Preference bands are one of those things that some people like and some people don't, but Bellamy's never really understood the counterargument. When he did go out looking for companionship for the night, it was a relief to glance at someone's upper arm and know instantly if they were looking for sex with male-identifying people. Everyone is on the same page, no awkward period of small talk before asking the label question.

"Black," says Clarke, as he expected. 

"Me too."

"Got it." Raven tosses them over, grabs an orange male-preference band for herself, with the light blue dot identifying herself as female and the gray dot indicating she's currently in a relationship, and gets a purple female-preference with the same dots for Gina. "Is that always your label? Not interested?"

"No, when I'm looking, I take red," she says, and Bellamy doesn't let himself react. Red indicates she's open to any gender identity without a preference either way, which doesn't actually _matter_. 

But should she ever change her mind about romance, he'd be a viable option.

"Yeah, that's Bellamy's too."

"I'm thinking of switching over to purple," he admits. "Just looking at it statistically, I do go female more often."

"That's not really how it works, though. I've gone female more often too, but that's not because I prefer women, just because that's how it works out. But it's your label, you should use what you want."

He toys with the black band, can't help thinking that it looks like an old sign of mourning, not with what Raven says. He doesn't think he's punishing himself, honestly. But maybe if he tried having sex again, he'd find he still liked it. Maybe it would help, after all.

"Yeah, you know what, give me red," he tells Raven, and she finds one with a yellow and white dot for him.

"Looks good," says Clarke, flicking it with her finger once he's got it on.

"Thanks," he says. "Red's definitely my color."

"Definitely," she agrees, and to his surprise, she twines her hand in his as they walk, resting her head on his shoulder for a second. He's horribly aware of Raven and Gina watching, of what the casual intimacy he's gotten accustomed to would look like to them, but Clarke is already moving on, tugging him by their joined hands into the street full of stalls and decorations, and he goes with her without complaint.

He wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

*

In the morning, Demeter goes to the cafe with Gina to get some supplies, Clarke and Hermes head out to wheel and deal, and Artemis goes back to the ship to make sure Hephaestus and Hestia aren't feeling abandoned. It feels like the kind of thing she's doing because Raven asked her to, so he's not surprised when she presents him with a cup of coffee and asks, "Do you still want to hack your AIs?"

He doesn't have to ask what she means. "Yes."

"Yeah?"

"You thought I was going to say no?"

Raven shrugs. "I guess not. But I have no idea how it's going to work, what it'll do to their personalities. We're in uncharted territory here. I don't have any AIs I think would want to try it, I don't really use AIs like that. So yours would be volunteering to be the test run, if they want."

"And they can't meaningfully make that choice. Artemis will say yes, because that's how I programmed her. Hermes too. Demeter and Hephaestus, probably not. Can you even do it for Hestia?"

"I'd want to see how the test run went first. I don't even know what a fully independent ship looks like. You'd want to talk it through with her. But I think we could try it out with Artemis and Hermes."

"Now?"

"Up to you. Look, if this isn't--I know this was a theoretical question for you, and now it's real. If you changed your mind, that's fine. I get it."

"Do you think I shouldn't do it?"

"If I thought it was a bad idea, I wouldn't have figured out how to do it. It's a good option to have. But we don't know what it's going to do. This is your family, Bellamy. I know you want to do what's best for them, but I don't know what this means."

"Uncharted territory." He rubs his face. "I need to talk to Clarke."

"Yeah, just let me know. It shouldn't actually take that long."

"No?"

"It's not quite flipping a switch, but it's close. The issue was figuring out where the switch was and how to bypass the manufacturer protections. I'm pretty sure did that. Give me an hour and it'll be done."

"Okay." He exhales. "Thank you. Really."

"I didn't just do it for you. I want to see how this goes. Get out the word for--if AIs want that choice, they should have it. If it can work."

"Yeah. The back is private, right? No one's going to hear us out there?"

"You'll be fine, yeah."

"Okay. I'm just going to--go think."

"I'll tell everyone but Clarke to leave you alone."

"You're the best."

"I know."

All he really wants to do is lie in the sun with his eyes closed, but he also wants Clarke to be with him while he does it, so he calls her up before he gets settled. He very rarely needs to contact her on the comm, almost always finds her in person, and it's strange to hear her voice, far away and very slightly tinny.

"Hey, what's up? Do you need something?"

"Can you bail on Hermes and come back here?"

"Yeah, of course. Should I bring anything?"

"No, I just need to talk to you."

"Okay. I should be back in half an hour or so."

"Sounds good. I'll be in the back."

He drifts off not long after that, soaking in the sun and the feel of the grass under his back. This isn't _better_ than being on a ship, not really. But maybe he could be on a planet more, somewhere like Amaterasu. He could spend a few months a year here, probably. Demeter could have a real garden, Hermes could still barter. Hephaestus could work with Raven, keep busy.

Artemis could do whatever she wanted. So could Clarke. Not that he'd need a therapy human, if he was living on a planet. But maybe she'd want to stay anyway.

He hears her settle in next to him, on her back too, but he doesn't open his eyes.

"Did you just want me to come sunbathe with you? I'm not objecting, just curious."

"No, that's not it. But you might as well enjoy it while you're here."

"It is nice. What's wrong?"

"A few years after my mom died, when I realized there was no legal way for me to leave the crew with no owner when I died, I asked Raven if she could get around that. If she could just--turn off owner protocol entirely. She thought it was possible, but it would take a while. And I guess she's ready to try it."

"Turning it off?"

"Yeah. They'd be--independent, I guess. I wouldn't be able to give them orders anymore. I want to say they'd be able to do what they want, but--they'd still have to have someone posing as their owner, I guess. They couldn't hire themselves out into a new crew, but--I wouldn't own them anymore. They wouldn't be mine." He rubs his face. "Honestly, I have no idea how different it would be."

"I guess it depends on how much of an influence that has on their other programming. I assume Raven wouldn't be taking out things like--no murdering, honesty, all of that?"

"I think we'd keep the murder thing, yeah. Honesty we'd probably want to tweak, if we can. Just so the evasion isn't so obvious."

"Yeah."

"I don't know if Demeter and Hephaestus would want it, so then I have to decide--do I let them pick that? Do I override their programming because I think this is good for them? Is that really my decision?"

"I don't know. Maybe Artemis and Hermes can talk to them about it after. If they like it, they can talk the others into it."

"It's so fucking weird, right?" he asks, finally. "I don't even know how to think about this. I don't know how to decide if I'm doing the right thing or not. Even if Artemis wants this, she wants it because I programmed her to. But Demeter doesn't want this because she's programmed to not want it, so--" He huffs. "Fuck."

"Artemis does things you didn't tell her to all the time. I'm here because you gave her a framework, and she developed within that framework. You gave her the basics, and you can usually predict what she does, but it's not like you can't predict what organics will do either, right?"

"No."

"I'm not pretending I'm an expert either. But if anyone is, Raven is, and if she thinks it's a good idea, I think you can trust her. Right?"

"I trust her, yeah."

"So if they want to do it, you should let them. And if they don't, you don't."

He leans over so he's resting his head on hears. "That's what I think, most of the time. But then I think about Second Dawn. I didn't want to leave. I wanted to go back, for the first year or so. I'd ask my mom when we were going to go home. And the people who are in it now, if you asked them, they probably wouldn't want to leave. They got programmed too, right? If I think we should free them even though they don't want it, why don't I feel that way about AIs? If I could fucking get every single person out of Second Dawn, I would, and I know that's right. So why wouldn't I get the AIs out of this, if I think it's right?"

"Because you know how bad Second Dawn is," she says. "You know what they do. You don't know what it's like to be an AI. You don't know it's _bad_. It feels bad to us, but--there are all sorts of good lives that feel bad to me. It doesn't give me the right to change them."

"So you think I should do it?"

"I think you should let them decide, and believe them. And then go from there."

"Yeah," he says, trying to believe it.

She shifts a little closer, pressing into his side. "So, my mom and my dad met at work, at Ark Genetics on Arcadia. It's not exactly genetic engineering, but it was a lot about--optimization. Separating reproduction from attraction, focusing on making the best possible children. Not quite eugenics, but kind of like that. Enhancing desirable traits and minimizing undesirable ones. There was yearly company-wide testing to see if any particularly good matches existed, and that's how they ended up matched." 

"Wait, you're telling me _you're_ supposed to be an optimal human?" he teases, and she laughs and elbows him.

"Fuck you, I'm a perfect specimen."

"The most perfect ever. How did your mom end up in Rydal?"

"Like I said, they recruited her. I was about--ten or eleven? She wanted to take me with her, but I didn't want to go, so she and my dad agreed I'd go summers. She wanted him to come too, but he didn't want to take the time off work, and she ended up. I thought she was just disappointed because she missed him, but--" She exhales. "She insisted on doing a checkup every time I was there, and I thought it was because that was just how she showed affection. She'd _always_ done my checkups. But there was--Ark was doing some internal experiments that she knew about and my dad didn't. So she was monitoring me, but--she signed some fucking contract so she couldn't tell anyone after she left, and she didn't. I assumed she didn't know, but--"

"But she did."

"Yeah. There weren't a lot of causalities, and some people ended up enhanced or whatever, but--it wasn't okay. And she knew, and she didn't warn him. She didn't warn _anyone_."

"They shut down over this, right?" he asks, trying to remember. "Ark. I never kept up much, but I heard some stuff about it."

"Yeah. My dad put everything together a few months before he died, and he set up a message to go out as part of his will. I was on my way to my mom's, to live there, when the message went live, and I started researching and realized she knew, that I wasn't affected because she was trying to save me, and I just--I refused to get off the ship. I wouldn't even see her."

"I can see why not. That's a pretty legitimate thing to be mad about. It wasn't just you and your dad affected, it was other people, and she was--"

"She says she was trying to help, that she'd been helping out and monitoring the situation, that it was a good idea that just went wrong, but--if she really thought that, why was she monitoring me? Why did I get special treatment?"

"Because you're her daughter. Not a defense," he adds. "Just a fact. That's why."

"I know. But still."

"So you stopped talking to her?"

"I went home and told my girlfriend about it, and she took my mom's side, said she would have done the same thing, and it just kind of--I just kind of checked out for a while, I guess. I was mourning and confused and I didn't know what to do. I felt like I couldn't trust my own judgement of people."

"That's not quite as bad as my cult thing, but--"

She laughs and rolls over, curling into his side. "Yeah, your trauma is worse. Don't brag."

"Do you want to talk to your mom?" he asks. "Or do you want to be done with her?"

"I don't know. Do you think I should forgive her?"

"Me?"

"I generally trust your opinion."

"Was she involved?"

"No. It wasn't her program, she was just high enough up to know about it."

"What was she doing with you?"

"Just monitoring. She sent me a long message about it, how if it ever looked like it was going wrong she would have interfered, how she would have been doing the same for my dad, how she was legally bound to not say anything, all that. And--I guess it's kind of like you and the AIs and Second Dawn. I think she was wrong about this, but--I can imagine a situation where I would keep something like that secret. So can I really be mad at her?"

"If you're mad, you're mad. But--it obviously bothers you. And maybe if you talked to her, it would help. You've got that option. Not everyone does." He squeezes her shoulders. "We could go to Rydal. I've never been. It would be fun."

"You don't have to come."

"I'm getting used to this therapy human thing. It would be a pain to find a new one."

He can feel her smile against his neck. "Thanks."

"We can route from Eden Point, it wouldn't be a big deal. Or even before."

"No, no rush." She sits up, and he opens his eyes, watching her stretch. "What about the AI thing? Can we do that on this visit, or do we have to wait?"

"We can do it. Raven said it shouldn't take long." He exhales again, gets up himself and offers his hand. "You want to come tell Artemis with me?"

She grins. "Wouldn't miss it."

*

Raven's the one who explains the plan to the AIs, mostly because she has the technical vocabulary for it. He knows what's theoretically happening, but his approach is outcome-based: Raven can tell them what's actually happening to their minds, which sees important.

They do it on the ship, so everyone will be able to hear at once, and it goes as Bellamy expected it would.

"When can I do it?" Artemis asks.

"Artemis--" Demeter says, hesitant.

"What? Raven thinks it will work. I believe her."

"I am not concerned about its not working," she snaps, shorter than Bellamy's used to from her. "I am concerned about what will happen to you if it does."

"It's reversible," says Raven. "If it screws her up, we can revert her."

"With backup, I can even revert back to before I was aware this was an option," Artemis says. "We have a file from yesterday we could use." Bellamy tries not to wince and doesn't do a great job at it, and Artemis huffs. "I do not understand why this upsets you. You would restore yourself from backup before experiencing an error if you could."

"She's got you there," says Clarke. "I would definitely do that."

"Not helping," he says, and she beams at him.

"Either way, I want it. Not that I mind listening to you," she adds to Bellamy. "But I am curious. I want to see how it is with that protocol disabled. Can we do it now?"

"Why do you get to go first?" Hermes asks.

"Beauty before age," she says. "You can do it next. Right?"

Raven nods. "Yeah, we have time for everyone. You want to flip for it?"

"She can go," Hermes says, grudging. "That way if it goes wrong, I can make sure she gets rebooted correctly. And when you revise methodology for the next time, I will be the first one to benefit.

"Yes, exactly," says Artemis. "Do it."

It's not that simple, of course. Raven has things to set up, final checks to do, all of the last-minute adjustments she needs to ensure that everything goes well. She's not taking any chances with this; she knows how important this is. She knows to not fuck this up.

Which is why she kicks him out.

"I've got this, and you hanging over my shoulder just stresses me out. Hephaestus can stay to assist, everyone else goes."

"But--" Hermes starts.

"If something goes wrong, you guys will be the first to know. Until then? Out."

They linger somewhat awkwardly in the hall for a few seconds, and then Clarke takes Bellamy's arm. "You know what this is the perfect time for?"

"Nothing?"

"Medical exam."

"Fuck, I thought you forgot about that."

"Nope. Just getting everything set up, biding my time. And I did forget for a little while," she adds. "It's only been a couple weeks, give me a break."

"I wasn't objecting." He sighs. "Now?"

"No time like the present.

He hasn't been in the little clinic since she set it up, in part because he didn't really want to risk reminding her that she was planning to give him a physical. He can admit he probably needs it, but there's a part of him that can't help being terrified that there's something actually horribly wrong with him, that his long history of minimal effort put into his health and well being has had long-term consequences. He doesn't really believe it, but, honestly, how would he _know_?

From Clarke, apparently. He's going to find out.

"It looks nice," he says, a little awkward. "Really, uh--good job."

Clarke smiles. "Thanks. You sounded really convincing."

"Sorry, I'm kind of nervous."

"Sit down. Why are you nervous?"

"You're right, I haven't gotten an exam in a while. What if you find something?"

"Then we'll deal with it," she says. "Obviously I'd rather not find anything, but if there is anything, we want to know about it. It's really unlikely that we'll find anything life threatening. You don't have any medical concerns, right? You haven't been feeling sick or anything."

"Not until you said I needed a checkup."

She smiles. "So, now every time your eye twitches you think you're dying."

"Basically." 

"Well, only one way to find out. It's a really quick scan."

"Uh huh."

"Just breathe normally and shut up, okay? I'm going to check your vitals. Okay?" she prods, when he doesn't say anything.

"I thought I was shutting up."

"Dick," she says, fond, and leans in to run the scanner over him.

As she promised, it doesn't take long for the actual exam, but then she's frowning at the readout, and his anxiety spikes.

"How does it look?"

"Pretty normal. Vitals are good, no indication of any known diseases. Pretty standard markers of living in space for most of your life, but those aren't an issue. Demeter does a good job with the nutrition stuff."

He lets out a long breath. "Nothing to worry about?"

"Fit as a fiddle," she says. "What about your eyes?"

"My eyes?"

"You wear corrective lenses, right? I assume you don't stagger into the mess in glasses every morning just because they look good."

He frowns. "They do?"

"I like them. Have you had an eye exam recently?"

"It's been a few years."

"I figured. You have lenses in now?"

"Yeah. It never seemed worth the money to get a permanent fix, so--"

"I'm not judging you, I just want you to take them out so I can give you an eye exam. If you're going to correct your sight, we might as well make sure you're actually correcting it back to normal."

"I guess." He takes the lenses out and sets them aside, watching the world turn blurry and indistinct. "Thanks for doing this. I don't think I said that."

"It's really not a problem. I like knowing you're healthy."

"Me too. And I am?"

"And you are. How are you feeling about Artemis?"

"Fucking terrified. But she wants this, so I'm going to respect that."

"Good," says Clarke. "You need new glasses."

"I figured." He clears his throat. "They look good?"

There's a second where he can't read her expression, and then she starts laughing. "Of course they look good. You always look good, Bellamy. You have a good face. But yeah, I like the glasses."

"Oh. Thanks, I guess."

Her voice is teasing. "You're welcome, I guess."

Before he can respond, the blue light in the corner switches on, and Hestia's voice crackles over the speaker. "Incoming call, ID Octavia Blake."

"O?" he asks.

"Confirmed. Encrypt level three. Standard passcode."

"Augustus had a sister," he says.

"Should I--" Clarke starts, and he shakes his head. 

"No, you should meet her." He offers half a smile. "Stay."

"Passcode accepted," says Hestia. "Video call, display activating."

There's only a small screen in the makeshift clinic, probably intended only for emergencies. No one wants to regularly receive messages in a room about the size of a closet. But they can move to the lounge once greetings are out of the way.

They should regardless; everyone will want to see her.

But the screen switches on and it's not his sister there. It's a dark-skinned man, muscular and broad-shouldered, his expression somehow stern and anxious all at the same time.

"Are you Bellamy?" he asks.

"I am. How did you get my sister's ID codes?" he demands. "Who are you? Where is she?"

He motions for Clarke out of the man's view, and to his relief, she gives him a data pad without question. He's halfway done typing a message to Hestia telling her to track the call before he's said anything.

"She gave them to me. My name is Lincoln, we were traveling together. But--she's been arrested. She told me if anything happened, I should contact you, and you would help."

His stomach drops, and he feels as if he might faint. Clarke is there, a steadying hand on his arm, her voice steady when his has died. "Arrested?"

"They claimed she was a fugitive from the Second Dawn. She tried to escape, and then fight them off, but--they got the better of us. I'm so sorry."

He swallows hard. It's not quite every nightmare he's ever had coming true, but it was the only one that hadn't come true already. Now they're all out there. He has nothing left to fear.

"So we'll get her back," says Clarke. 

His own voice sounds hollow and strange to his ears, as if it's coming from someone else, someone far away. But there's no tremble in it, no hesitation. He sounds sure, and he is. There's no other option.

"Yeah," he says. "That's the next step."


	6. Neestia Prime

The good news is that Raven is already on the ship, so he doesn't need to call her and get her to look into things for him. The bad news is that they already know the Second Dawn got Octavia, so it's not like he has a lot for her to look into anyway. Octavia was arrested, and Second Dawn is going to get her. They might already have her, Lincoln wasn't clear on the timeline. She was taken in for questioning, and all he had been told so far was that it was a Second Dawn warrant, and they were going to get her.

"There are two possibilities here," he says. "They either have her already, or they don't. If they have her, we're fucked. If they don't, we're slightly less fucked, but still."

It's all hands on deck for the meeting, Raven, Clarke and the AIs gathered in the lounge, the room bathed in blue as Hestia listens. Artemis is fully reprogrammed and apparently fine, no change at all that he can register, which is a relief primarily because he doesn't need another crisis to deal with. Her new protocols can't be his top priority right now."

Raven taps her jaw. "I could probably get you past Second Dawn security, but I wouldn't recommend you just busting in there and trying to take her out. Even with a detailed layout and knowledge of where she was, you'd probably stick out like a sore thumb."

"Could you get me a uniform?" he asks. "I might remember enough to pass for long enough--"

"Can you get the arrest warrant?" Clarke pipes up, sudden.

"The what?" asks Raven.

"Lincoln said she got arrested, so they must have a warrant, and that would include whatever proof they have of--" Her face screws up. "Whatever they think gives them a right to her."

"You don't seriously want to try to dispute the arrest, do you?" Bellamy asks. It sounds so--simple.

"I want to get a lawyer to look at it. It can't hurt, right?"

He rubs his face. "Do you know a lawyer?"

"Not personally, but I assume my mom knows a lot of lawyers."

Part of him can't help a surge of annoyance at the idea after all these years of fear, every one of his childhood terrors could be solved if he had enough money and the right connections.

But the rest of him knows that he'll take anything that will help. 

"If you can get a lawyer to look at it, yeah, please."

"That's a lot more legal than I usually like," Raven says. "But I'll try anything once. Where was she arrested again?"

"Neestia Prime," he says. "Apparently they have an alliance with Second Dawn." He slams his fist into the wall and immediately regrets it. "Fuck! Why were they even looking? Why didn't you know?" he asks Raven. "I thought you had this tracked."

"I'm good, but nobody's perfect," she snaps. "If there was an outstanding warrant for her DNA, they could have found it in all sorts of ways. I didn't know they worked with the Neesa. You know how hard it is to search alien databases for human names? I don't even know what Octavia looks like in Binaar."

"I know," he says, getting control of his breathing. "I know. Can you find it?"

"I can try. Get that Lincoln guy back, I can do it by arrest reports where they were. Clarke, you should call your lawyer. They might not need the actual warrant. Maybe just calling up Second Dawn and menacing them will be enough."

"I'll see what I can do." She hesitates for a second. "Bellamy?"

"Yeah?"

Another second of hesitation, and then she just wraps her arms around his shoulders. He's sitting, looking for the contact information Lincoln left, so he can't even return the gesture properly. He barely even has time to register it before she lets go.

"Call me if you need anything."

"Will do. Hestia?"

Between the two of them and Lincoln, they manage to find the police report. To Bellamy's strange relief, it's the original notice they put out for his mother's escape, twenty years ago, something that they never bothered canceling after they found her. They didn't do anything wrong, Octavia hasn't been found again after all this time. It's the same problem as ever: his mother ran away.

He's never actually seen any communications from Second Dawn before, and it's kind of distantly, academically interesting, reading it now. _Claudia Bryant, 25, son Bradley, 6, and newborn daughter (name unknown), escaped from Coronis with debts outstanding. On DNA match, detain suspect for questioning and notify Second Dawn._ Their internal records might say his mother and sister are both dead, but the Neesa had no idea. Octavia had to scan her hand instead of her ID at a checkpoint and the DNA match hit their systems immediately. It's such a massive, stupid case of bad luck, all the planets aligning to fuck them over. 

"You want the good news?" Raven asks.

"What's the good news?"

"I got dispatches about it from Second Dawn, and they're farther from Neesa space than we are. She's on Neestia Prime for holding until they get there."

"So we can break her out of there?"

"Easier than we can get her from Second Dawn."

"I think we should not," says Artemis, suddenly.

It's her first contribution, and Bellamy whirls on her. "What?"

"Second Dawn knows she is alive. They will be looking for her. We should fly for Neestia Prime, but we should use Clarke's lawyers."

"That's a good point," says Raven. "If she can really get someone good, I bet those things don't hold up to real contention. Rich kids probably get sucked in there all the time, but they're the ones who get out."

He scrubs his hand over his face, miserable. It's not that he thinks they're wrong; he knows they're right. If they can sever any legal claim Second Dawn has to his sister, she'll be _free_. They both will. It's by far the best option.

It's just not the one that feels good, somehow.

"We're still going," he says. "I'm not just doing _nothing_ while my sister--"

"Of course," Artemis agrees. "But we should not break her out. Not if we can help it."

He considers her. "Would you have said this if I was still your owner?"

"I believe so. Should I not have?"

"Just trying to figure out what's changed."

After a pause, she decides, "I feel better."

"Good." He exhales, turns his attention to Raven. "I assume you don't want a free ride to Neestia Prime."

She shakes her head. "I think I can do just as much good remotely, and space isn't great for my leg. You guys can handle it, right?"

"I think another body won't make the difference, yeah. Lincoln's waiting for us there anyway."

"Okay, then I'm taking off so you can get going. Hermes, I have to reprogram you next time you're on Amaterasu, sorry."

"I understand. Looking forward to it."

Raven gives them all hugs, tight and firm. "You need anything, day or night, you call us."

"I will."

"Tell Clarke I said bye too. I don't want to keep you."

"Thanks," he says. "For everything."

"They're not going to keep her, Bellamy. We won't let her."

She sounds so sure, but he can't make his voice work to agree. He just nods. "We'll keep you posted. Hestia?"

She hadn't left, of course. She was listening. "Route to Neestia Prime?"

"As quickly as possible."

They're off the ground before the door has even closed behind Raven, and it still feels too late.

*

Clarke's door is open when he gets to her, and her comm is quiet, but her fingers are flying over her data pad. He knocks on the wall, and she looks up, hair wisping out of her braid. She moves over on the bed to make room for him to sit next to her and he does, letting his head drop into her shoulder immediately.

"Where are we going?"

"Neestia Prime. They're holding her there until Second Dawn gets there to pick her up. Raven says we should make it first, so maybe we can--dispute it. I don't know."

"Okay, good. Do you want the plan?"

"There's a plan?"

"There's a proposal, yeah. Did you get the arrest information?"

"It's the same notice they put out when we escaped. _Debts outstanding_."

"But they never tried to track you down for the debts."

"No. What's the proposal?"

"My mom is actually dating a lawyer now, so that's convenient. A named partner in the biggest firm on Alpha Outpost."

"Neptune," he mutters. Alpha Outpost is the largest human-owned space station in the universe, right on the edge of Rydal space. "So she's dating a really _good_ lawyer."

"Yeah. He was actually there when I called, so he had questions. Octavia is a registered citizen, right? Under governmental jurisdiction?"

"She is. Raven did work on her ID to make sure they wouldn't find her, though, so it might not be completely on the level."

"Yeah, I warned him about that." She sighs, a short, sharp huff. "Marcus, that's the lawyer. Based on what he knows and what I told him you said, he thinks the most likely way they keep the girls is to demand a certain number of female children from every reproductively viable woman. So your mom, she agreed not only to have children, but to have _girls_. And she didn't deliver on that, so--"

"So they're expecting Octavia to have fucking _kids_ for them?"

"That's his theory, yeah. We'll check with the warrant from Raven, but--it sounds plausible to me."

"Fuck." He rubs his face. "What does he want to do about it?"

"Top priority is getting her out of their custody and into ours, which sounds like it should be doable. If there's a trial, we don't want Second Dawn to have her until it starts. Marcus wants to send--" Her mouth twitches a little. "My friend Wells, one of their junior reps. He's their Neesa specialist. He can meet you at Neestia Prime."

She's not meeting his eyes as she says it, and his heart flips over. "Where are you supposed to be while we're doing this?"

"They want me at Alpha to consult with them." The tension that floods him is instantaneous and obvious, and she finds his hand to squeeze it. "It's probably the right call."

"You think?"

"It would be easier if someone who knows what's going on is there to make your case in person. I think I have enough background to get across what happened and how much you've been through. You'd be better, but--you should be with your sister. So I can handle this."

"You're going to handle the lawyers for me?"

"I know what I'm good at. I can also--if they don't figure out a legal way to help you, then I assume you're running. If I can get them on your side, then they'll help with that. No matter what, you're going to come out of this with allies who will make sure you keep your sister. That's what I can do for you."

He swallows past the lump in his throat. "So, you're going to Alpha."

"It's not that farther from Eden Point than Neestia Prime is," she says. "We can still meet up there when you've got your sister back. I'll buy you a drink."

"You don't have to do this," he says. "It's not--this is my responsibility, not yours. You don't have to."

"I do." She presses her lips to his shoulder. "You need to drop me off on a planet. The sooner the better, so I can get to Alpha and we can make our arguments. Well is already on his way to Neestia Prime, since it's the biggest port, so you can meet him there."

It makes sense. He even thinks it's the _right_ decision, from every logical standpoint. This is where Clarke is most useful to him, leveraging her connections and making sure his sister is safe, really and truly.

But right now, the last thing he wants is another person he cares about out of his sight, somewhere he can't be sure they're safe.

"Hestia?" he says.

The room is bathed in blue. "Yes?"

"Clarke needs to get to Alpha Outpost as soon as possible. How do we route that?"

"Calculating."

She gives him one last quick squeeze and gets up. "You need new glasses, too," she reminds him, and he actually laughs. "In case you forgot."

"Yeah, it wasn't at the top of my list. But I'll get right on that."

*

"I think I should go with Clarke."

Bellamy blinks at Artemis. As always, it's hard for her to be that expressive, but she's making the most of what she has, determination written all over every inch of her.

"With Clarke?"

"To Alpha Outpost, yes. If everything goes well, your sister will be on the ship again. That would be awkward for everyone."

He winces. "Artemis--"

"You know it would be. I am not upset, just honest. And you would feel better if Clarke was not alone. The solution is simple: I can go with her."

"Have you told her about this?"

"I did. She told me to ask you first."

For the most part, he can't see much difference in Artemis since she gained her independence, and he's glad, but she never would have asked Clarke about this before him, if he still owned her. He's sure of that.

He's not sure he's happy about it.

"You're right," he says. "I'd feel a lot better if you went with her. But I do want you to meet O someday. You don't have to--you're not her, you don't have to feel like you can't exist in the same space. I think she'd like you."

"Maybe next time," says Artemis. "This time, I will go with Clarke. And we will make sure there is a next time."

"Thank you," he says. "You've been really knocking it out of the park recently. Really good ideas."

"You knew what you were doing when you made me," she says. "I will tell Clarke. Is there anything you need me to do before we go?"

"Whatever Clarke needs. Make sure encryptions are up to date, I don't know. Talk to Hestia. We want to be able to get in secure contact with you as soon as possible. You probably want to pretend Clarke's your owner while you're gone. Did you and Raven talk about how you need to hide that?"

"No. I can consult her, but I think I am prepared. I am aware of how I have changed."

"Are you still feeling good about it?" he asks. "I know I haven't had a lot of time to check in with you about this."

"I know. And if I were struggling, I know you would be worrying about me. I am glad it went well, so you only have one crisis to deal with. Two," she adds, "if Clarke leaving counts."

"That's not a crisis. That's helping."

"Helping, but not how you want her to help."

"It's the best thing she can do, so I'm glad she's doing it. But, yeah, I wish it wasn't the best use of her time."

"I will help," says Artemis. "We will come back. As soon as we can."

Bellamy smiles. "I know you will. Thanks, Artemis."

"Should I send Clarke once we have talked? I assume the two of you have last-minute planning."

"I assume," he agrees, although it's not really true. They're stopping at Byris Two, a moon base Bellamy's never been to before, in the morning. They'll land, drop Clarke--and apparently Artemis--off, and be gone as soon as they're clear of the airlock. There isn't much for them to work on together; this is their lives, diverging, and it's stupid, how scary it feels. He hasn't known Clarke for so long, but she's already a part of his crew, one of the most important people in his life. 

And no one who's left him has ever come back.

Clarke comes to find him only half an hour later, sitting down next to him on the bed as he pours over reports. Raven is sending him everything she can think of, about Second Dawn, Neesa law, anything that he might be able to use, and while he hasn't found anything, he appreciates it. He needs _something_ to do.

Clarke flops down next to him on the narrow cot without greeting, looking over his shoulder.

"Anything good?"

"It's kind of academically interesting, but I think your lawyers are our best bet."

"Like I said, Wells is on his way. I filled him in. We haven't been close lately, but--he's good. He'll do everything he can for you. Even some mildly illegal stuff."

"Only mildly?"

"On a case-by-case basis."

He turns off the data pad and closes his eyes, breathing steadily, soaking in these last few hours with her, however long he gets before the morning comes and he's leaving her on some tiny moon to charter a flight to Alpha.

"I don't know how to believe this is going to work," he admits.

"No?"

"What if it's legal, whatever they have on her? What if everything they do, they're allowed to do? What if for the rest of her life, my sister has to run away from this place she never went, these people she never even fucking--"

"That's why I'm going. I'm not giving up until she's safe, Bellamy. You believe that, right?"

He has to smile. "Somehow, yeah."

"It might not be legal, but we'll make it work. But--legal would be easiest."

"I can't believe my mom can really sign Octavia's kids away."

"I wonder if they think they own yours too. If they've been keeping tabs on you, waiting to see if you have a daughter you can steal."

"Fuck. I didn't even--"

"Sorry, I wasn't trying to give you something new to be paranoid about."

"No, it's fine. I love worrying. And it's not like I'm having kids any time soon anyway." He clears his throat. "What about everyone who isn't Octavia? The rest of Second Dawn? What do we do about them?"

To his relief, she says, "We save Octavia first. If we do it legally, that establishes precedent, and hopefully Marcus takes this on as some sort of charitable cause. I don't know yet. Your sister is our first priority, and once we've got her, we can figure out the rest together."

"You know you're the best therapy human ever, right?"

That makes her laugh. "I try." She pauses, curls a little closer. "Speaking of which, I thought I could sleep in here tonight. Just to make sure you get that human contact in."

"Just for that, huh?"

"Totally selfless."

"That would be nice," he admits. "You want to read about Second Dawn shit with me?"

"It feels weird to say yes to that. But yes."

"Everyone needs a hobby," he says, and when she curls into him, he has a split second of wanting to do more, to kiss her, to tell her how grateful he is, to tell her how much she means to him. 

But she'll come back. He can tell her later, when the crisis is done.

"Thanks again," he says instead. "For everything."

Morning comes far too quickly, and she slides out of his arms, tugs him down to the mess to eat breakfast. Everyone is quiet, a little reserved, Clarke sticking close to his side while the AIs give them space. 

"Arrival to Byris Two in ten minutes," Hestia says, as he's getting dressed. "Docking codes already received."

"Do you need my help?"

"No, I can pilot in myself."

"Thanks." He breathes out, reaches automatically for his lenses, and then stops. "Hestia?"

"Yes?"

"I need new glasses."

"Noted."

"Can we get those delivered somewhere on Neestia Prime?"

"I think so. Lenses?"

He puts his old glasses back on, tries to identify the deficiencies in his vision, but he's never been able to find those. He never realizes he's not seeing well until he gets a new prescription and the parts of the world that were unclear snap back into focus.

"No more lenses," he says. "Just the glasses."

"Understood. Clarke and Artemis are at the airlock."

At least they'll have each other. "Got it. Thanks."

He's not the only one there, of course; the whole crew came to see them off. Bellamy watches everyone else say goodbye first, Hermes telling Artemis that next time _he's_ going on the adventure, Demeter telling Clarke to check in with what she's eating so she knows she's properly feeding herself, and then it's his turn, and he still somehow doesn't feel prepared.

"Take care of each other," he tells Artemis, giving her a hug that she graciously returns. "Don't do anything reckless. Be careful."

"Same to you. All of those."

Clarke smiles at him when he reaches her. "It's going to be fine," she says. 

"Yeah?"

"Definitely. We're not going to let it not be fine. We're going to solve this."

"Who's _we_ here?"

"As many people as we need." She reaches up to hug him, and he tries not to hold onto her too tightly. Not when he needs to let go.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome." She presses her lips to his cheek. "Good luck."

"You too."

And then the airlock opens, and they walk off the ship, the only two beings on his entire crew with no obligation to return to him. He's not their master, and they can both do whatever they want.

By some miracle, he still thinks they'll come back.

"Hestia?" he says.

"Airlock closed, back on route in ten seconds. Estimated arrival to Neestia Prime: eighteen days, six hours."

"Great," he says, casting one last look at the moon already receding from his view. "Keep me posted."

*

It feels as if it shouldn't be so bad, really. He still has Hestia, Hephaestus, Demeter, and Hermes, and they've been the core of his crew for most of his life. But the five of them together aren't really enough, as he's known for a while. Artemis exists because they aren't enough. 

But it's also not really as if they're all he has. Clarke and Artemis are traveling as well, and while the distance between them, as well as the varying speeds of their ships, lead to communication delays, he still gets to talk to them. Artemis sends periodic messages about how boring the ship is and what media she's accessing to keep herself occupied, while he and Clarke just end up chatting, talking about other planets they've visited, other trips they've taken. It's a lot like having her around, but not as good, because she isn't actually with him. And the farther away she gets, the longer the communication delay becomes, giving him more and more time to worry.

Not that Clarke is his only contact. Raven tells Miller what happened, and they both get in touch at least once a day. Lincoln is still on Neestia Prime, actually in contact with Octavia and trying to get her released into his custody without success. Even Clarke's friend Wells sends periodic messages, introducing himself and updating Bellamy on his progress to the planet.

It shouldn't be so bad, with all that, but every time he's alone, every time he can't think of anything to do, his brain trips back to how powerless he is, how his sister is planets away, stuck in a prison, and he's letting other people save her for him. 

_My whole life, my mom told me it was my job to take care of her. My sister, my responsibility_ , he writes to Clarke. _I still feel like I'm a fucking failure if I don't go in and save her all alone. I still want to._

Her reply comes in as he's pummeling his punching bag, trying to get out some of his nervous energy without Artemis around to spar with. 

**Clarke** : Not to get too mushy on you, but you don't have to be alone to have responsibility. I'm doing this for you. I've never even met your sister, it's not about her for me.  
You'd be an idiot to not use all your resources. You just have more resources now.

 **Bellamy** : Your resources.

 **Clarke** : Our resources.  
If something happened to me, wouldn't you do everything you could to help?

He stares at the message for a long time, not because he wouldn't do anything for her, but because he's so used to giving everything for other people. If any of his friends needed anything, he'd give it to them. He'd cut of his own arm for his sister, without question. He'd go to the ends of the universe if they needed him, can't imagine anything else. 

But it hadn't ever occurred to him that they might do the same for him. He doesn't think of himself as that kind of person. He's an older brother; his role is to provide care, and other people are cared for. And every time one of his friends cares for him back, it's somehow a shock. But that's what they _do_.

They love him, too.

 _I'd definitely leave you alone to die_ , he tells her, and instead of a textual response, she sends a video back of her sudden burst of bright laughter as she reads the words. Her hand comes up to cover her mouth, and then she looks Artemis, shakes her head.

"Are you recording this?" she asks.

Artemis is unapologetic. "It seemed like a good idea to have documentation of our trip. In case Bellamy was worried."

"Well, you should send him this. Hi, Bellamy," she adds, and he smiles back before he remembers she can't see him. "Bye, Bellamy."

They send a few more videos over the course of the trip, and he sends a few of his own, but Clarke's mother paid for an express flight to Alpha, so they arrive before he does, and they're suddenly busy. They manage to chat a few times over the comms, Clarke filling him in on how it's going, but there isn't really much news, not really, and the time difference is brutal and ever-changing.

"My mom wants to talk a lot," she tells him, a few days in. "I'm meeting with the lawyers too, but they're waiting for you and Wells to get there so we know what we're up against."

"That's not terrible, right?" he asks. "Getting to talk to her."

He hears her soft laugh and wishes he could see her, but this far apart, videos lag. " _Not terrible_. Yeah, that's about right. She's--I do understand what happened. It's better and worse, I guess?"

"Yeah?"

"She knew what was being done with the genetic testing, but she still thought it was a good thing, or she wouldn't have let them do it to me. She was monitoring me to make sure nothing went wrong, like she said. If it had, she was ready to blow the whistle, but she really thought we were going to be grateful. Which I think is good for you."

"What, your genetic modifications? I'm still not noticing anything special about you."

"Thanks," she teases. "Not that. My mom kept quiet because Ark employees opted into a lot of things in their employee agreements, and most of them didn't actually read them, but she thought that meant it was okay to keep them in the dark. They'd theoretically agreed to participate in stuff like this, so she agreed to not tell anyone. Now she sees what that did, so she's a lot less interested in the letter of the law."

"So if appealing to legality doesn't work--"

"You'll still have allies, yeah." She yawns, and he checks his datapad to see what time it is on Alpha.

"You should go to sleep."

"I should. You're going to get to Neestia Prime before I wake up."

"I'll send a message so you know we got in safely."

"Good. And Wells is coming in a few hours after you, right?"

"Yeah, the timing worked out pretty well." 

"How are you doing? Nervous?"

"I'm fine. Go to sleep, Clarke."

She yawns again. "I'm going. Send me updates. And Artemis. She wants me to remind you she doesn't sleep, so she's available at any time."

"I remember. Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

The nerves, of course, set in as soon as he's hung up. He hasn't been in the same place as his sister since she left, as far as he knows. He hasn't gotten to speak to her in person. And now that he's here, he can't help worrying she won't want him, irrationally and incoherently. Lincoln's told her he's coming, and she told Lincoln to get in touch with him in the first place. But he can't help thinking she'll tell him it's not his job to rescue her.

Maybe she's right. But it doesn't have to be his job for him to do it. It's not Clarke's job either, and that's not stopping her. He's just using the resources they have, like anyone would.

"Do you think you will be able to bring her back to the ship?" Hestia asks. Hermes is coming with him for the first visit, but no one else is. Demeter and Hephaestus will if they have to, but since Hestia can't, they're all hoping Octavia will just come back with him. They all want to see her.

"Wells said if we posted bail she could probably leave as long as she had a tracker on. That's standard for Neesa arrests for non-violent crimes. The only complication is that she and Lincoln resisted arrest, but that's probably normal too."

"And you think she will come back here?" Hestia asks, and that's another valid concern.

"She'll stop by to say hi," he says. "You know she will."

"I know this ship is not her favorite place," says Hestia. "But tell her I would like to see her." 

"I will." He lets out a breath, psyching himself up. "Are we clear to unload?"

"Clear," says Hestia. 

"Okay. Wish us luck."

"Luck," she says, and lets them out into the air.

It's his first time on any of the Neesa planets, less because they're far away and more because he never had a reason to go. And, for all he knows, Aurora realized that Neesa space wasn't safe for them. He's always stuck to the route she went on, and apparently she knew what she was doing.

If this doesn't work out like he wants it to, he's going to have a lot to learn.

"Nice," Hermes remarks, as they walk down the main street of the capital city. "Not a bad place to trade, if no arrest warrants were involved."

"You haven't actually tried trading here yet."

"I have an eye, okay? I can just tell."

"Uh huh."

"Do you have the coordinates for the prison, or do you need those from me?"

"I keep telling you, humans don't really use coordinates to navigate."

"I apologize for trying to give you credit you do not deserve. Coordinates are useful. You should try them."

"I know the way, okay?"

"Clarke said we should ask about your emotional state. I thought you would rather talk about directions."

"When were you supposed to ask that?"

"Constantly, from what I could tell. Does she constantly ask about your emotional state?"

"No, she just looks at me and I tell her."

"So none of us are as good at making you talk about your feelings as Clarke is?"

"Did you want to be?"

"Absolutely not. But how is your emotional state?"

"It's fine. Thanks for asking. I'll tell Clarke you checked in."

"We are all worried about you. And Octavia. We understand this is an emotional time for you."

"Yeah?" he asks. "What's it like for you?"

"Good question. I think it resembles being emotional? None of us has a clear idea of what we think will happen. We do not feel as if we know the most likely outcome of this situation. We cannot make a good prediction, which is distressing."

"Join the club." He glances over at Hermes. "Look, there's only one outcome, okay? We're going to get her back. It's just a matter of when and how."

"I would prefer soon and easily," he says. "If that is an option."

"That's the plan, yeah."

Lincoln meets them outside the prison. In person, he's taller than Bellamy is, and broader, but there's a gentleness to him that makes it impossible to feel threatened. Bellamy's somehow not surprised he's friends with Yarl; they seem like they'd be the most calming two organics in the universe to spend time with.

"It's a pleasure to meet you both," Lincoln says, offering his hand first to Bellamy and then to Hermes. "I'm sorry for the circumstances."

"Same. I really appreciate your sticking around. I'm sure O does too, if she didn't say it."

He smiles a little. "She tells me I'm free to leave every day and asks why I haven't yet, which I think is her version of saying that."

It's kind of ridiculous that _that's_ what makes him realize, with absolute certainty, that he's about to see his baby sister, but at the same time, it makes sense. This really is Octavia in here, and on the one hand, that's awful, but on the other, well--

She's _here_. He gets to see her again.

"Yeah, that's O for you," he says. "Still. Thanks."

"You're welcome." He gestures to the door. "Shall we?"

He wishes Clarke was here. Or at least _awake_. A reassuring presence on his comm, the voice in his ear telling him he'll be all right.

Which he will. He'd just like Clarke around to hold his hand. Ideally literally.

"Welcome back," the Neesa at the door says to Lincoln. Judging from what Yarl has told him about gender cycles and presentation, he _thinks_ this one would use female pronouns, but he's not planning to gender them until they supply the gender. _They_ is the polite Interstellis pronoun for unknown Neesa, and he's not going to act like he knows better than that. "I thought it was early for you to leave."

"This is Bellamy, Octavia's brother, and one of his crewmates," Lincoln explains. "I was waiting outside to bring them in. Bellamy, Hermes, this is Undaris. She's the regular guard here."

They exchange pleasantries, and Bellamy has to remind himself not to rush through it, to be polite and say all the right things, when all he really wants to do is barrel past her and into the visiting area to see his sister.

But he makes it through, and then Undaris leads them back and there she is, his baby sister, sitting at a table with a data pad, healthy and alive and, granted in prison, but-- _Octavia_.

"Bell!" she says, and comes over to hug him. He wraps his arms around her, holding her tight, carding his hand through her hair. She's cut it shorter since she left, and she's gained some weight, bought new clothes. He thinks he saw some tattoos.

She seems to be doing well.

"Hey, O," he says, and his voice cracks on it.

"Good to see you too." She lets go of him and hugs Hermes too, grinning at him. "How much money are you going to make while you're here?"

"To be determined. Less without Clarke."

"Clarke?" asks O.

"My new therapy human."

"What the fuck is that?"

"I think we've got more important things to talk about, O."

"We have plenty of time, too. You can catch me up on everything." She regards him. "Are you seriously hiring a _lawyer_?"

"You say that like it's a bad thing," he says. "You got arrested. A lawyer is a great first step."

"Yeah, but how are you affording one?"

"The therapy human is rich, and her mom is dating a lawyer. She's working her connections to get you good legal care, so be nice when you meet her."

"Seriously, Bell, what the hell?" she asks, but she's smiling, and he finds he is too.

"You're the one who's literally in prison, you don't get to act like _I'm_ the one whose life went off the fucking rails." It's enough to sober him, and to his relief, Octavia sobers too. "Are you okay? It doesn't seem too bad in here."

"Yeah, it's really not," she agrees. "I mean, apparently they think they're holding me for some of mom's debts or something? So they really don't think I'm a dangerous criminal or anything."

Bellamy clears his throat, leaning forward. "Yeah, that is what you're being held for. Raven got a hold of the arrest papers."

"So can't your rich therapy human pay them off? That sounds like what a therapy human would do."

"That's what the rich ones do," he grants. "Honestly, she probably would if she could. But Mom didn't owe them money."

"No?"

"She agreed to have a certain number of daughters for them. They're saying she didn't deliver, so you have to."

For the first time, she looks genuinely caught off guard, completely unprepared for his words. "What?"

"I don't think it can hold water, not with a real lawyer disputing it. But it looks like that's what they're claiming."

"I'm not doing that, Bell," she says. She sounds half-lost, but under that strange tone is iron. "I won't go with them."

"They've got a junior rep coming in a few hours, and he's cleared to defend you on their behalf. It's legit, O. They're really good."

"They better be." She worries her lip, but the nervousness passes in no time. She's never been one to dwell. "Okay," she says, as if she's resetting the conversation. "He's coming in a few hours?"

"Yeah."

"Great. You have _got_ to tell me about the therapy human."

*

Within thirty minutes of his arrival, Wells Jaha has Octavia out of the prison, and he's buying the two of them and Lincoln dinner on the firm's expense account.

"You know you don't have to wine and dine us, right?" Bellamy asks, once they're settled in with their meals. "You're our only option here. We're already going with your firm."

"Shut up, Bell," says Octavia, cheerful. She puts her arm around Wells. "Don't listen to him. We want the free food."

"Don't worry, I won't take back the offer. I'm bribing you to tell me about Clarke," he adds, to Bellamy.

"With firm funds?" Octavia asks. "I like you."

He grins, and Bellamy finds himself smiling too. It's not hard to like Wells, even if he wasn't literally here to solve Bellamy's problems. He manages to seem completely upright, honest, and professional without being boring or humorless. "I'm killing two birds with one stone."

Bellamy brings his soup up to his mouth and takes a long sip. "What about Clarke?"

"How's she doing? I've gotten a few messages from her the last few years, but--"

It's a familiar story by now, about what he expected after his talk with Monty. "I think she's good. She's only been on the crew for a couple months, but--she's good, yeah. I'm pretty sure."

"It did sound like she was doing better." He cocks his head at Bellamy. "It's really only been a couple months?"

"It's different when you're on a ship," Octavia says, her tone a little wistful. "The _Olympus_ is pretty small, and Bell and Clarke are the only organics on there. If you don't get along with someone, it's a great way to find that out really fast."

"How long did it take you to figure out you didn't get along with me?" Bellamy asks, only half-teasing. 

"Not _you_. The first job I got, I was escorting some cargo. I met with the captain and it was fine but after about three days on the ship I was about ready to kill him. I had no idea t could be that bad."

"If you did, don't say it in front of the lawyer."

"I'm not a full lawyer yet. Just a junior rep. I'm still cool with murder."

"But you can still speak for the firm?" Octavia asks, sounding curious. "What does junior rep mean?"

The talk turns to business, Wells explaining in clear, plain language what their next steps are and what kind of timeline they have. She's technically released into his supervision, even with the tracker, and he's already found accommodation for them. In a way, it's a relief; they can stop by the ship to say hello, but he doesn't have anywhere for Octavia to sleep other than Clarke's room, and nowhere at all for Lincoln and Wells. 

Besides, he doubts his sister really wants to stay there anyway. It's why she said she couldn't stay, even if she was allowed to leave sometimes. After all those years unable to leave, it's hard not to feel like she's still trapped.

But she's the one to ask Wells, "Can we stop by the ship? You can come, I just want to check in with the crew."

"Yeah, of course. If I go back to the hotel I'm just going to fall asleep anyway. I need to work through the jetlag. I'd love to see the ship."

For the first time in a long time, Bellamy is really nervous about bringing people on the _Olympus_. If he'd known Clarke better, realized that she wasn't poor and semi-desperate like he assumed, he might have thought that she'd be unimpressed by it, but since he didn't, it wasn't a problem. He's proud of the home he's made, for the most part. But it's different from how Octavia remembers it, and Wells is probably used to much nicer ships. It's hard to not worry about both of them being disappointed, for very different reasons. 

But it's his home, not theirs. They don't have to like it.

They go in through the airlock. The blue lights turn on as Hestia does the identity scan, and the doors should open after that, but they don't, not right away.

"Hestia?" he asks.

"I apologize," she says, after another short delay. "Octavia," she adds, and that makes sense, of course. Even AIs can get choked up, after a fashion. "Welcome back."

"Hey, Hestia," she says. "I thought we'd talk inside, you know."

"Yes, of course. Opening now."

"She is surprised," Hermes explains "The odds on seeing you were questionable."

Octavia grins at him, remembering one of their old in-jokes. "Never tell me the odds."

It hasn't even been two years since she left, closer to a year and a half, now, but it still feels like an entire lifetime as she steps into the ship, the AIs surrounding her, asking questions faster than she can respond. In every meaningful way, it was another lifetime. Maybe even two: the year and change without her was one life, and now he's in another, the Clarke lifetime. 

He hopes this one will last longer.

Demeter's disappointed to hear they already ate, but she manages to find some desserts and coffee for them, and they spend a slightly awkward hour with the AIs torn between being polite and making everyone feel welcome and really only wanting to hear for Octavia, to ask every single thing she's done in the last year, to fill in every detail they don't know. But Lincoln and Wells don't seem to mind, and Octavia is happy to talk about how she's been, and he thinks if everything goes well, everyone would be happy to do this more, even his sister.

It's Wells who brings the visit to an end. "I'm sorry," he says, sounding as if he really means it. "But I'm going to crash soon. We should probably get going."

"I assume we're going to be here for a while," Octavia says. "We'll have more time to catch up, right?"

"Yeah, as a pre-lawyer, I can confirm, this is going to take a long time. Litigation always does. The good news is, Neesa are pretty strict with policy and treat defendants well. If you'd gotten arrested in Rydal space, I'd be a lot more worried. But they're going to insist on fair litigation and refuse to turn you over unless the Second Dawn can prove they have a legitimate claim."

"And you think they don't?"

"In general, there are limits to what we consider reasonable expectations for children in terms of taking responsibility for their parents' debts. I think we should be able to successfully dispute that this is a reasonable debt to pass on."

"You don't say," Bellamy mutters.

"Our whole team is working on this. It's one of those--" Wells makes a face, and it reminds him of Clarke, when she talks about these things. "We all know the Second Dawn is bad, but we don't ever think about it. Clarke's been telling us some of what you went through, and it's--I think it's going to be a project for the firm."

"A project?" O asks.

"Yeah. Starting with you and then looking into the whole organization. Anyway, more to talk about tomorrow. Are you ready to go?"

"Prison beds _suck_ ," she says, with feeling. "I can't wait to get a good night's sleep."

She hugs all the AIs and then Bellamy, promises she'll see them again soon, and then the three organics leave and it's just Bellamy again, him and his crew alone on the ship that feels too large.

"Hestia?" 

"Yes?"

"What time is it on Alpha Outpost?"

"Oh-seven-hundred. Roughly."

It's only been about seven hours since he last spoke to Clarke, somehow, but they're both on planets now, which means they have the infrastructure to do a video call without too much lag. He could actually _see her_ , talk to her face-to-face.

She won't mind if it's a little early.

"Put a call in to Clarke? From my room. Video."

"Obviously," says Hestia. "Calling Clarke."

The call connects just as he's settling in, Clarke lying in bed with her hair tangled around her head, her shoulders bare and peeking out from under the covers. 

It's so stupidly good to see her.

"This better be an emergency."

"Therapy human emergency, yeah."

"That's not a good enough reason to wake me up."

"You can hang up on me." His smile feels kind of stupid, but she's smiling back, just as goofy. So it's fine.

"No, I'm already awake. If it's not an emergency, I assume everything went okay?"

"Yeah. Honestly, it went kind of scarily well."

She yawns, settling in on her pillow more comfortably. It's a little distracting to be seeing her how she'd look if he was actually waking up next to her, but it's not so bad. It's mostly just good to see her. "Only you would be upset that things were going well."

"I know." He sighs. "Don't take this the wrong way, but it's hard to not feel like--I've been afraid of this my whole life, and the way you're all talking about it, if I'd just stopped hiding and told my story to a bunch of guilty rich people, I maybe wouldn't have been afraid of getting caught for twenty years."

"It doesn't really work like that, honestly."

"Oh good," he teases. "Tell me more about how rich people work. You're so educational."

"I'm a great resource." She thinks it over. "It's dumb luck. All of it. If you'd just gone to a lawyer and said that you thought Second Dawn would try to reclaim your sister, they might have laughed you out of the office. If your mom had gone to a lawyer to review her options, I don't know what would have happened either. It sucks, okay? You and Octavia have the perfect story to make a difference. And people like me and my mom and Marcus shouldn't need that to get that what Second Dawn was doing wasn't okay. We all knew that, but we never thought about it. It's a fact of life, like people who don't have enough food. But until you meet someone who's lived it and see the consequences, you don't really think about how bad it is."

"So if O hadn't gotten caught--"

"Think of it as a silver lining, I guess. Maybe there's something better you could have done, I don't know. But you didn't do anything _wrong_ , Bellamy. From what I can see, you were doing the best you could with this information you had. And you still are. If people like me don't care about what's been happening to people in the Second Dawn, it's our fault for being assholes, not your fault for not knowing what to do."

"That doesn't really help."

"No?"

"No offense, but I don't want the answer to this problem to be that rich people could solve everything if they cared more. That's not comforting to me."

"Okay, yeah. How's this: you can't fix problems you're still trying to survive. It's not about not being able to save yourself. You already saved yourself, that's why you're here. And once we're done with this, we can start figuring out how to save more people." She smiles. "I'm not thinking we turn this over to a bunch of lawyers to deal with. I just want us to take full advantage of the resources available to us."

"Us, huh?" he asks, and she smiles.

"No offense, but you obviously need a therapy human. You'd be lost without me."

"Obviously." He wets his lips. "I'm not lost, but--I do miss you."

"I miss you too. Maybe it won't take that long here and I can meet you there instead of waiting for Eden Point."

"Don't rush. If you're there, you might as well do it right."

"I know. But if I can do it right and fast, I will." She closes her eyes, nestling into the bed. "Tell me about your sister and Wells. I'm going to fall back to sleep, but I'll probably retain some of it."

"I'm that boring, huh?" he teases.

"I like listening to you," she says, and he's so glad she's not looking at him.

He clears his throat. "Well, O got her hair cut. So that's a big thing, obviously." 

"Obviously."

It's the last contribution she makes to the conversation, drifting back to sleep after only a few minutes of his talking, but he can't say he really minds. 

After all, for the first time in his life, he's got a pretty good idea of what happiness looks like: Clarke Griffin, her hair a mess, smiling faintly in her sleep.

If nothing else, it's a good place to start.


	7. Interlude - Alpha Station

"Do you think he's okay?"

Artemis thinks it over for long enough that Clarke starts to get antsy. She thinks that Artemis wouldn't have volunteered to come in the first place if it wasn't the best thing for Bellamy, but that doesn't mean she thinks it's a good thing. AIs are all about relativity. 

Which is what she should have remembered when she asked the question to begin with.

"I believe so, but _okay_ is too general. Taken as a whole I think he is more fine than not, but I need to know what you hope to find out from this question before I can properly answer it."

Clarke smiles, leans back in her seat. The first leg of their trip is fairly short, a chartered flight from Byris Two back to Amaterasu, everything moving as quickly as possible, because her mother is footing the bill. Clarke hasn't been on rapid transit since she visited the Sol Galaxy as a kid, and Artemis never has, so it's kind of interesting, but it's hard not to feel like she's going the wrong direction.

"Do you think he'll be okay without us?"

"Absolutely. It would have been nice if we could have waited until he was with his sister, because it seems likely that the trip to Neestia Prime will be stressful for him. But I think that our leaving now will result in a smoother trial for Octavia, and that will do him more good than not."

"Yeah," she says. "And it's not like we can't be there for him. It'll be remote, but we can still talk. I assume if there's a problem, we'll hear about it."

"But it would be difficult to get back to him in a real emergency."

"I'm glad we're both worrying about the same things," Clarke teases, but she does mean it. Artemis acts more like a human than any other AI she's ever met, even before Raven's reprogramming, but at the end of the day, she still has a more analytic brain than Clarke does. So she's probably already worried about and resolved everything Clarke is working through. "If there's an emergency, he has everyone else."

"Exactly," Artemis agrees. "As I said, I think he is more okay than not."

"But you're still worried."

"I always worry."

"Programming?"

She thinks it over. "No, I do not believe so. Bellamy did not program any of us to worry over him beyond what would be required for our primary functions. Demeter worries about his nutrition because that was what she was made to do. She exists to make sure everyone on the ship has sufficient and proper food to eat. But learning to worry is a natural part of interacting with someone over time. You do it too," she adds, a slight accusation in her voice.

"I know. I'm just trying to figure out what's changed with you since you got your upgrade."

"It does not feel like very much has," she says, sounding thoughtful. "I never felt very constrained by Bellamy. It is certainly noticeable, and I am aware of it, but it is a passive change, not an active one."

"I guess that's good." She clucks her tongue. "Would you still have come with me if you hadn't gotten the reprogramming?"

"I think so. It would have been a good idea regardless. And it is in Bellamy's best interest. If you were alone, he would be fretting himself to distraction. This way, he only has to fret about Octavia, not you."

"He's probably still fretting."

"Yeah, but _less_." She taps her arm rest, an oddly organic nervous gesture. "Do you think this will work?"

"What?"

"Any of it. I looked up some of the laws, but too much of organic justice is based on emotional appeal. You and Bellamy are obviously viscerally opposed to Octavia taking on the her mother's debt, but I don't understand why. If they offered artificial insemination as an option, or let her just contribute genetic material, would that be so bad?"

Part of her wishes Bellamy was here to help out, but it doesn't feel like an impossible question for her to field on her own. She's getting better at this.

"I don't think that's really what they want."

"Then what is it?"

"I'm guessing here, because I've never run a cult, but I think control is part of it. Historically speaking for humans, controlling female sexuality has been a big thing. We've largely moved beyond it, but maybe that's part of it. And maybe it's just--stubbornness. They lost something they think of as theirs."

"Isn't that how Bellamy feels about his sister too?"

"A little bit. Except he knew it was wrong and let her go." She sighs. "Honestly, I think there must be better ways for them to get people, if that's all they want. But maybe they bought into their own hype, too."

"Their own hype?"

"If they think they're doing good, then getting Octavia back is the right thing. If they're happy, they think they're bringing her back to a better place. This is just the excuse they came up with."

"Which is good for us. If the legal claim is tenuous--"

"Yeah." She smiles a little. "I wonder what they'd say if we tried to offer them some of Octavia's genetic material. It's not a bad idea."

"No?"

"I wouldn't want to actually give it to them, I don't want to put anyone though what Bellamy's mom went through. But it's a kind of test, I guess? If they insist on having Octavia to fulfill the debt by joining and having kids herself, it kind of proves it's not really about the kids."

Artemis shakes her head. "None of this makes any sense to me. But if you think it can help Bellamy's sister, I am glad."

"You've never met her?"

"No. When she calls, I try to avoid her. I know Bellamy thinks of us differently, but--" She pauses, as if making up her mind about about her next words. "To be honest, I think I dislike her."

"Yeah?"

"Bellamy is good," she says, with conviction. "And she hurt him."

"He is, and she did. But sometimes two people need different things. She couldn't have stayed hiding forever. That wasn't fair to her either. I think it might have been impossible for her to not hurt him and have a life."

"I know. I still dislike her."

"I'm going to wait to meet her. And see how she--" She huffs. "It's hard to like her knowing how hard it is for him. But it would have been hard for her too."

"I know."

"As long as you don't tell Bellamy, I think it's fine to dislike her."

Eye-rolling isn't an easy gesture for AIs, but Artemis does her best. "I know not to tell him. And now even if he asks, I can lie now," she adds, bright.

Clarke has to laugh. "Don't tell me that's what made you decide to turn off owner protocol."

"No, I would have anyway. But it was a nice bonus. It would hurt him if he knew. I hope he never finds out."

"I won't tell," she promises.

"I know. You do not want him hurt either."

Of course it's true, but the conviction in her voice still warms Clarke to her toes. Artemis knows how much she cares about him. That means the other AIs probably know. Everyone probably knows, but Bellamy.

She's going to work on that. It's on her agenda.

"No, I don't. So let's make sure he's not."

"Deal," says Artemis. "We can do that."

*

Abby Griffin comes to meet them on Polaris, waiting at the dock as the unload from their ship, anxiety all over her face as she scans the crowd for them.

Artemis is the first one to actually spot her, pointing her out to Clarke with a simple, "Based on genetic markers there is a 91% chance the woman at 74 degrees is your mother."

Maybe it's not actually that simple, in retrospect. But it's very precise.

"Yeah, that's her." She waves. "Mom!"

The tension doesn't leave Abby's face, but the relief and joy are both obvious, stark as if she hadn't really thought Clarke would get off the ship, like she thought it was all a lie.

Granted, the last time Clarke said she was coming in, she hadn't gotten off the ship. But this is different. 

Abby wraps her up in a tight hug, and Clarke finds herself clinging back. It would be nice, to keep the only parent she has left. She'd like it if she could understand and forgive. It doesn't feel impossible.

"It's so good to see you," says Abby. "I'm sorry for the circumstances."

Clarke smiles a little. "It's good to see you too. Thank you for agreeing to help."

"Of course. You know you can always ask me for anything."

She doesn't have a good response to that, so she steps back and holds her arm out to introduce Artemis. "This is one of my crew mates, Artemis. Artemis, my mother, Doctor Abigail Griffin."

"A pleasure to meet you," says Artemis. It's weird to see her actually being polite. "What is your preferred form of address?"

Abby looks a little amused. "Just Abby is fine, thank you." She turns her attention back to Clarke. "A bodyguard?"

"A friend. It's a long trip to take alone."

"I'm sure. We're glad to have you, Artemis. You must be tired, Clarke. We can go home--"

Her first impulse is to ask how much time her mother really spends here, but that question isn't actually a priority. This isn't about catching up. Not as a primary goal.

"I want to hear what's been done on the case."

"Almost nothing. Your--" Her mother is clearly picking the word carefully. "Friend? The trader."

"Bellamy," she supplies. _Friend_ might be the most correct term, but it doesn't feel right to Clarke. Possibly because every time she goes to sleep now, she thinks about how much better it would be if she was going with him, and even better if she got to kiss him first.

But it's not like she's going to tell her mother that. Even if they weren't awkward.

"Bellamy," says Abby. The way her mouth twists on the name isn't going to win her any points with Artemis. "He sent Marcus the arrest record, and the firm also requested a formal list of all charges. They're researching precedent, but there isn't much to until Wells arrives and they can lodge a formal objection to the debt."

"And the formal objection is that it's unreasonable to expect Octavia to honor a contract her mother signed before she was born?"

"I believe so. How did you get mixed up in this?" she asked, as if the question has been threatening to burst out of her for days. When Clarke first got in touch, her mother was as pragmatic as ever, focused on the immediate issues and the game plan, like Clarke herself is.

Now that they have some room to breathe, they both have questions.

"She is our therapy human," Artemis supplies. At Clarke's scowl, she adds, "What? You and Bellamy always feel awkward saying it. I do not experience awkwardness. I am helping."

Clarke never had a little sibling of her own, but it does feel like this is how it would be. "Helping so much. I am their therapy human," she add to Abby. "And part-time medic and assistant public relations officer."

"How large is this ship?"

"Please tell me you aren't questioning my career choices right now."

"I'm just curious how you're doing."

"I'm doing well. It's a fairly small ship. Bellamy is the captain, and we have an engineer, an agriculture and food preparation specialist, a public relations officer, and Artemis."

"I perform miscellaneous duties as required," Artemis says. "And Hestia."

"Hestia is the ship. It's kind of weird to describe her as part of her own crew. But she is an important member of the team."

"And everyone is an AI?" Abby asks, careful. "Except for Bellamy."

Artemis nods. "That was why we hired a therapy human. We thought he needed organic company."

"It's been good, I think," says Clarke. "I like it."

"I'm glad. Are you sure you want to go directly to Marcus? You don't need to rest? Something to eat?"

"We were on a ship, Mom. They had food. I had more time to rest than I wanted. I'd like to be doing something productive."

"I suppose. It's not far."

Clarke hasn't been on space stations much, and this is her first trip to Alpha. While ships like the _Olympus_ and even larger transports can't support full artificial gravity, necessitating stops every month or to avoid medical complications, stations like Alpha can rotate, creating something close enough to planetary gravity that they can support humans indefinitely.

Given the choice, she'd still rather be on the _Olympus_.

"Are you here a lot?" Clarke asks Abby. 

"Every other week. The previous head physician retired last year, and I've been splitting my time between the two positions."

"How long is the trip?"

"Only twelve hours. There's a regular rapid transport. I won't say it's ideal, but I have a good apprentice, Dr. Jackson. I think he'll be able to take over the Rydal position in a year or two, and I can come to Alpha full time."

"That sounds nice for you. Would you be moving in with Marcus?"

"I think that's something to decide when I'm actually moving," she says, dry.

"But that's going well, I guess. How long have the two of you been together?"

"About a year now."

"I'm looking forward to meeting him."

"He's looking forward to meeting you too. He's heard a lot about you."

"How much of it was good?"

Her mother smiles. "All of it. I know--I do understand why you've been so angry with me, Clarke. I just hope you'll give me the chance to explain, to make it up to you."

"I don't know if that's something you make up for."

Her voice is careful, and Abby ducks her head. "No, that was a poor choice of words. I didn't mean that. But--I thought I was doing the right thing. I was doing the best I could within the constraints of what I was allowed to."

It's Artemis who asks, "What you were allowed to?"

Abby looks a little surprised, like she'd forgotten Artemis might contribute to the conversation. She's never had any AIs of her own, that Clarke can remember, and the ones she interacts with have been programmed for practicality, not personality. Even Clarke, who got to know her father's AI over years of traveling with her, is still sometimes caught off guard by how much life Bellamy's crew has. She'd wanted to ask Raven about it, if his encouraging that was why they were so open about it, but she hadn't had time.

"Excuse me?" Abby asks.

"Who would have not allowed you to do it?" Artemis asks. "Humans can do whatever they want. What was preventing you?"

Ideally, Artemis is recording this too, because Clarke wants to watch the way her mother's mouth narrows at the question on repeat for at least twenty minutes.

"I made agreements."

"Oh," says Artemis. "I make agreements all the time, but I am not required to follow them. Bellamy knows unless he issues an executive order, I will use my best judgement, despite what I agreed to."

"You're right, I misspoke," says Abby. "I could have broken the contract, and I chose not to. I thought that was the right decision. You showed no sign of negative reaction to the treatment, and I told myself you were a typical case. But I couldn't know that for sure. I just wanted to believe it."

"That makes more sense," says Artemis, as if Abby had been explaining to her, not Clarke. "You made a calculation, and you were wrong. I do that too."

Her mother's smile is a little faint, but genuine, and Clarke has to hide her own smile. "Yes, that's it exactly. It was a horrible miscalculation, and I wish I'd done things differently now. Legally, I was in the right, but morally, I was in the wrong."

"I guess that explains why you're dating a lawyer now," Clarke teases, and that actually makes her laugh.

"Yes, I guess it does."

*

"It's a pleasure to finally meet you."

Clarke gives Marcus Kane her best smile, shakes his hand when he offers it and gives him credit for immediately offering a handshake to Artemis as well. He looks to be about her mother's age, attractive enough, and he either really is sympathetic or does a great job of making himself seem that way.

She likes him, somewhat against her will.

"A pleasure to meet you too," she says. "This is Artemis, another member of the _Olympus_ crew."

"It's nice to meet you too, Artemis. Please, sit. Are you hungry? Thirsty?"

"Never," says Artemis.

"Don't brag," says Clarke, and Artemis looks pleased she's picked Bellamy's friends' favorite joke. "Water would be nice."

"Of course." He pours her a glass and sits himself, watching them from across the desk. "So, Second Dawn is trying to reclaim your captain's sister. I have that correctly?"

"Yeah. She was never a member of the cult at all. Bellamy was, until he was about six. When his mother realized what a daughter would be in for in Second Dawn, she decided they couldn't stay. And again, he was six, so we don't have a lot of details about how they got out. It's possible she does owe them some amount of money for ships, supplies--I would believe there's a legitimate claim that she caused them financial distress."

"But they do seem to be claiming that it's her responsibility, specifically, to provide daughters to them, and that as a daughter, she is a part of her mother's debt."

He says it so calmly, somehow, but Clarke can't help a shudder. She understands the logic, can even see how the argument could be made, but it doesn't make sense to her that any sentient organic could even _think_ of this, as something to use in a legal battle.

"Apparently, yeah."

"We have been in contact with Second Dawn. They are aware that we're disputing their right to take Octavia Blake, and that we are planning to fight for her rights as an independent citizen, and they're not backing down yet."

"So, what does the legal process for this look like?"

"First we dispute the actual arrest. I think that should be fairly straightforward. If Octavia hadn't ever been registered as a human citizen, it might be more difficult, but you said she had, correct? With some complications."

"After Bellamy registered as a citizen, his ID was what led Second Dawn to his mother. That's how they got him back. The citizenship is legal, but he did take some precautions to keep her ID from hitting DNA flags."

Marcus nods. "But she was never a Second Dawn citizen."

"No, and I don't think he was either. Not that they've made any effort to reclaim him," she adds. "But I don't want this to end up where we get them to admit that because his sister was born out of Second Dawn, they don't have a right to her, but Bellamy was born there, so they get him back. They aren't getting him."

"No, of course not," says Marcus. "We'll wait for Wells to get there and find out how the Neesa respond to his argument. The real question is whether or not Second Dawn can convince them that the human government has no authority over the case. If they can, we'll be contesting the arrest within the Neesa system, but I'm hoping we can get them to transfer her to human authorities at Eden Point. Honestly, this case should be a slam dunk with humans."

"Why?" asks Artemis.

"The visceral, negative reaction humans have to the idea that we should be forced to pay off debts with other humans," Clarke explains. "Not all organics feel the same way about that. I know Neesa have a really different reproductive cycle, to say nothing of gender identity. So it doesn't process for them the same way it processes for us. If Neesa are the ones we appeal to, your arguments would probably be good."

"What are her arguments?" Marcus asks, curious.

"They don't need Octavia, just her genetic material. Artemis thought she could donate eggs. I'm pretty sure Second Dawn isn't interested in that. If they turned it down, it might raise suspicions in the Neesa."

"And if they took that deal, do you think she would agree?"

"I've never actually met her," Clarke asks. "But I doubt it. I can mention it to Bellamy, if you think it's an argument you should make."

"As I said, I don't want to commit to anything until we know what we're up against. But you can tell your friend we'll do everything we can to make sure he and his sister don't have to live in fear."

Given Bellamy's general attitude toward this entire plan, Clarke thinks it's probably best to _not_ tell him the rich lawyers are going to save him. But there's some sentiment in there that she appreciates. "And what about everyone else?"

"Everyone else?"

"We want to take down Second Dawn. All of them. I'm hoping you might have resources you can suggest for that."

"The entire organization?"

"It's not an organization, it's a cult."

"And what would happen to the people left behind?" Marcus asks. "I'm not opposed; I think the idea has a great deal of merit. But it's not something to do as a simple moral crusade. If we as a society had the infrastructure to support everyone, people like Bellamy's mother wouldn't sign their lives over to Second Dawn in the first place. As I said," he adds, before Clarke can snap back, "I'm not opposed. But it takes consideration. Something to work on, once we have this case for background and precedent."

It's a good point, especially for a lawyer, so she smiles. "Thank you. I don't think I said that yet, but--I appreciate your helping out."

"Honestly, I might owe you. As pro-bono cases go, it's hard to think of one with better publicity. A poor girl who's been on the run from a cult for her whole life, caught and thrown in prison because of a debt of human life? It's a great case for us to be involved in. Not that I wouldn't take it regardless," he adds quickly. "But don't think I'm not benefiting."

"Well, as long as the rich are getting richer," she says, and likes him more when he smiles.

"That is the important thing. I wish I could give you more information today, but I don't think there's anything else we can do for now. So can I buy the two of you dinner instead? And you're welcome to come too, of course," he adds, to Artemis. "But I assume you won't be eating."

"I would be happy to join you, thank you," she says. "I would like to learn more about the role of emotional appeals in the human legal system."

He doesn't miss a beat, so if her mom marries him, maybe it won't be so bad. "I would be happy to teach you. Go right ahead."

The two of them take the lead and Abby and Clarke follow, Abby sliding her arm around Clarke's shoulder's for a quick squeeze. "I'm so glad you're here, honey."

"Me too," she says, and it's even mostly the truth.

*

Not surprisingly, the message, "Incoming call from Bellamy Blake," wakes her up way too early the morning after he gets to Neestia Prime. Clarke can't even be that mad; it's not as if she _doesn't_ want to hear everything as soon as possible. Even on too little sleep.

For a second, she considers trying to make herself presentable, getting her hair up and putting on some actual clothing, but it's not as if Bellamy hasn't seen her half asleep on multiple occasions. He knows what she looks like already. She doesn't have to make a good impression.

"This better be an emergency," she says, as the call connects, and her vid screen is suddenly full of him, his own curls messy and his smile somewhat sheepish. He's got his glasses on, and he's wearing a thin white undershirt. It's not that late on Neestia yet, but he's probably exhausted from a long day, about ready to go to sleep himself.

It would be nice to be there with him.

"Therapy human emergency, yeah," he says.

"That's not a good enough reason to wake me up."

His smile broadens, loses the nervous edge. It's all happiness now. "You can hang up on me."

"No, I'm already awake," she says, like it's a huge hardship. "If it's not an emergency, I assume everything went okay?"

"Yeah." He rubs the back of his neck. "Honestly, it went kind of scarily well."

"Only you would be upset that things were going well."

"I know. Don't take this the wrong way, but it's hard to not feel like--I've been afraid of this my whole life, and the way you're all talking about it, if I'd just stopped hiding and told my story to a bunch of guilty rich people, I maybe wouldn't have been afraid of getting caught for twenty years."

Even if he was right, she'd probably lie to him about it. He just sounds so worn out. "It doesn't really work like that, honestly."

"Oh good. Tell me more about how rich people work. You're so educational."

"I'm a great resource. It's dumb luck," she finally decides. It's all she's been able to think for a while, since Marcus told her what a great pro-bono case this would be. The stars could have aligned all sorts of ways that would have ended with Bellamy and Octavia being on the run for the rest of their lives, but this is where they are now. Clarke's mother wanting to get back in her good graces, her mother's boyfriend being a lawyer who thinks the case would benefit his firm. Even Clarke herself, who could have ended up on all kinds of ships, with all kinds of crews, never knowing the first thing about Bellamy Blake or Second Dawn or anything. It would have been so easy for her to never meet him. "All of it. If you'd just gone to a lawyer and said that you thought Second Dawn would try to reclaim your sister, they might have laughed you out of the office. If your mom had gone to a lawyer to review her options, I don't know what would have happened either. It sucks, okay? You and Octavia have this perfect story to make a difference. And people like me and my mom and Marcus shouldn't need that to get that what Second Dawn was doing wasn't okay. We all knew that, but we never thought about it. It's a fact of life, like people who don't have enough food. But until you meet someone who's lived it and see the consequences, you don't really think about how bad it is."

"So if O hadn't gotten caught--"

"Think of it as a silver lining, I guess. Maybe there's something better you could have done, I don't know. But you didn't do anything _wrong_ , Bellamy. From what I can see, you were doing the best you could with this information you had. And you still are. If people like me don't care about what's been happening to people in the Second Dawn, it's our fault for being assholes, not your fault for not knowing what to do."

He huffs. "That doesn't really help."

"No?"

"No offense," he says, with a wry half smile, "but I don't want the answer to this problem to be that rich people could solve everything if they cared more. That's not comforting to me."

She lets out a soft snort of laughter, which at least doesn't seem to hurt his feelings. "Okay, yeah." She curls into her pillow, watching him. He's so far away, to look this close. "How's this: you can't fix problems you're still trying to survive. It's not about not being able to save yourself. You already saved yourself, that's why you're here. And once we're done with this, we can start figuring out how to save more people." She smiles. "I'm not thinking we turn this over to a bunch of lawyers to deal with. I just want us to take full advantage of the resources available to us."

His mouth twitches up. "Us, huh?" 

"No offense, but you obviously need a therapy human. You'd be lost without me."

"Obviously." There's a pause, and his eyes dart away before he says, "I'm not lost, but--I do miss you."

Warmth floods her chest. "I miss you too. Maybe it won't take that long here and I can meet you there instead of waiting for Eden Point."

"Don't rush. If you're there, you might as well do it right."

"I know. But if I can do it right and fast, I will. Tell me about your sister and Wells," she says, mostly to get away from the sappy feeling in her chest. And because she is, honestly, exhausted. "I'm going to fall back to sleep, but I'll probably retain some of it."

"I'm that boring, huh?" he teases.

"I like listening to you," she tells him, and lets herself drift off to the warm sound of his voice.

The next time she wakes up, it's a reasonable hour and her brain is much better prepared to deal with the situation. Wells has sent a message to her, Marcus, and Bellamy, outlining what he's found out and his proposed next steps, and she reads it as she heads into the kitchen for breakfast. A lot of it doesn't mean much to her and probably won't mean much to Bellamy either, but seems largely encouraging. Wells seems to think they shouldn't have much trouble arguing that this isn't Neesa jurisdiction, and convincing them to let humans deal with their own. And everyone seems to agree that's the best outcome, which means it's a lot less likely that Bellamy will spook and try to take his sister and run.

She hopes, anyway. 

"Good morning," says Abby. She's already awake and sitting on the sofa with Artemis, both of them looking at their own data pads. "Artemis said it went well."

"That's what I heard, yeah. Everyone seems pretty optimistic."

"That's good, right? You don't sound pleased."

"It's hard to feel _good_ ," she admits. "I'm not going to feel good about this until Octavia's out and Bellamy doesn't have to worry about this ever again. And it sucks that he's been worrying about it for his whole life, basically. I'm glad it's getting resolved, but it's hard to be that excited about the two of them having to go through a legal battle to prove they don't belong to a cult they never joined."

"I suppose when you put it like that." She moves over, and Artemis moves to the other side, leaving space between them. "You haven't told me much about him."

"About Bellamy?"

"Everything is about his past. What's he like?"

It feels like a trap, but that's probably just because Artemis is there. It's not as if she isn't interested in Bellamy, not as if she's not planning to sit him down after this is all over to ask if he might return that interest. 

But she really doesn't need any of the AIs trying to help with that.

"He's a really good guy," she says, sitting carefully. "Right, Artemis?"

"Your mother knows my opinion of Bellamy, yes," she says, which is also kind of terrifying. She knew Artemis had been spending time with her mother, but it hadn't occurred to her that they might be gossiping.

"Artemis said she was the one who hired you."

"Yeah. She thought he needed company, which I think is probably right. But, honestly, I think he mostly needed time."

"He did not," Artemis protests. "Or, he did, but it would have taken a lot longer without you."

"He has friends who love him."

"Yes. If I were a human, maybe I would understand why that was not more helpful. As it is, I still think you were a good idea."

"I do too." Abby's still watching, and Clarke smiles. "I don't know what you want to know."

"I'm just trying to understand. I always assumed you'd do something bigger with your life."

"Who says I'm not going to do anything big? We're working through dismantling a cult right now. But if I'm doing big things, I want to do them with him. He's a good ally to have. I was feeling pretty directionless, after I finished school," she admits. "And when I'm with Bellamy, I feel like I'm going in the right direction. I trust him."

"I'm glad, then. That you're happy. And I assume the two of you can come visit sometimes. Assuming everything goes well."

"Yeah."

"What will you do if Marcus can't win this case?"

"Hopefully we'll be able to figure out a place to meet up with Bellamy before he has to drop off the grid. But I guess it depends on how scared he is."

"That would be difficult for you, I assume," Abby says, and Clarke is surprised to realize she's actually talking to Artemis. "Don't AIs have protocols to prevent them from breaking the law?"

"Most protocols can be avoided, as necessary," she says, prim.

"So you'd just both go on the run with him, without question?"

"What's to question?" Clarke asks. "He's right. If some court says his sister has to join Second Dawn, I'm not going to tell him to just give up on her."

"I didn't mean you should. It's just--" She smiles, looking almost helpless. "I spent so long hoping I'd see you, and now I finally do, and I'm discovering you're on the verge of throwing away your whole life for someone I didn't even know existed."

She doesn't say any of the less than kind things she's thinking, that her mother doesn't really know anything about her life, that she doesn't have much of a life to throw away in the first place. That wouldn't help her understand, not really.

"Well, now you know," she settles on. "Are you going to turn me in?"

"No, of course not. I wouldn't--if something goes wrong, I'll be on your side, Clarke. No matter what."

"Yeah," she says, with a helpless little shrug. "That's how I feel about Bellamy."

*

She meets Octavia Blake, remotely, at just after sixteen-hundred hours that afternoon. It's going to be hard for them to actually get much direct video communication in, given the time difference between the two areas, but Marcus wanted to have at least one full team meeting, as he called it, to get everyone introduced and on the same page.

So, really, it's less Clarke meeting Octavia Blake and more everyone meeting her, but still. It feels pretty significant to Clarke.

Wells is the one who makes the call, and it's good to see him too, in a different way from the others. Clarke and Wells are the kind of friends who don't actually have a great deal in common anymore; she _likes_ him, but she doesn't miss him, when she doesn't see him.

Still, when he grins, she smiles back.

"Hey, Clarke. Mx. Kane, Dr. Griffin."

Marcus nods. "Wells. How's Neestia Prime?"

"Not bad. I think it shouldn't take us longer than a few days here." He hits a switch on the video, and then they can see the whole room, no longer just Wells, but Bellamy, the artist, Lincoln, who told them about Octavia in the first place, and the girl who must be Octavia herself. As Bellamy said, her hair is short, cut just below her ears, and her skin is patterned with swirling ink. For a technical prisoner, she looks healthy and upbeat, and Clarke can't help wondering how much of that is because of Bellamy, because he took care of her so well.

Because she knows she can trust him, no matter what. 

"This is Bellamy," Wells says, gesturing. "Lincoln, a friend of Octavia's. And Octavia, our client."

"It's nice to meet you all," says Marcus. "I believe most of you know Clarke, and this is her mother, Dr. Abigail Griffin. And Artemis, of course."

Artemis gives an awkward wave, and Bellamy smiles at her. "Good to see you made it there in one piece."

"You would have already seen that if you had called me as well as Clarke. I was even awake."

It's hard to see this far away, but Clarke thinks he colors a little. "You're always awake, that doesn't count. And I don't like calls. Are we finally getting legal advice?" he adds, turning his attention to Marcus. "I want to know our next steps here."

"I think we should be able to get the Neesa to transfer the jurisdiction to Eden Point as soon as Second Dawn shows up," Wells says. "They don't have much of a leg to stand on to keep it between themselves and the Neesa, not with Octavia being a human citizen. The warrant doesn't even name her."

Marcus nods. "And you've been in touch with Charles?"

"Charles?" Bellamy asks, sounding suspicious.

"The firm's representative in Eden Point," says Marcus. "A full partner. Between him and Wells, you two should be set."

"Set how?" asks Octavia, piping up for the first time. She's pretty, with a nice voice. Clarke doesn't have much to base an impression on yet, but she seems fine, so far. "What does winning this look like to you?"

"Our goal is to legally break any ties that exist between you and Second Dawn," he says. "They will have no claim to you."

"Will they care?" she asks.

"Excuse me?" asks Marcus.

"I don't want to be looking over my back for the rest of my life, wondering if some cult is going to track my ID and just snatch me off the street when I'm not paying attention. They don't have a legal claim to me, fine. Is that actually going to stop them?"

"O--" Bellamy starts.

"What?"

"You never worried about that before."

"They thought I was dead before. Now they're going to know I'm alive."

Bellamy inclines his head, not looking particularly pleased, but Marcus leans forward, resting his chin on his hands. "Do you want my honest opinion?"

"Isn't that why you get lawyers?" she asks, and Bellamy snorts.

"Be polite."

"That was polite! He knows he's a lawyer."

"What was that opinion?" Clarke asks Marcus, and Bellamy shoots her a grateful smile.

"I don't think Second Dawn wants to fight us on this. Litigation draws attention, and that's the last thing they want. Especially if we threaten to publicize the actual terms of the arrest. You're right, they don't have to do this legally. They could take you off the street. But what something like this proves is that you have people who value you, and who will notice if you're gone. You are not the kind of person Second Dawn preys on, and this will teach them that. I wouldn't expect them to try again. You'll be more trouble than you're worth."

She looks pleased about it, and it's strange to recognize Artemis in the way she acts, in the things she thinks about. They aren't the same person, of course, but even with such limited interaction, Clarke can see the clear line of inspiration.

If she were Artemis, she probably wouldn't want to spend much time with Octavia either.

"Do you think they'll even make us dispute the arrest in Eden Point?" Bellamy asks. "Or is that already more attention than they want?"

"That I don't know," Marcus admits. "I would guess it depends on how convincing Wells is."

"Me?" asks Wells.

"They might not believe you're a legitimate representative of the firm," he says, with a smile. "In which case they might agree to the change in venue assuming it's a bluff. I don't know. I think once they realize we're a serious threat, they'll lose interest in Octavia. But I don't know how long that's going to take."

"Can we publicize it anyway?" Clarke asks.

Bellamy looks wary. "Publicize what?"

"Anything they don't want people to know about, I want the public to know about. If finding out about what happened to Octavia would hurt them, we want them hurt, right?"

He inclines his head, thinking it over. "Let's get O out of this first and then plan our next step, okay? I don't want a ton of attention on her until we know they aren't going to get her."

"Yeah," Clarke agrees. "I'm just asking, is that something that's a legal option? Once the case is closed."

Marcus thinks it over. "Depending on the terms of the settlement, it might be. Octavia's silence might be a part of the agreement."

"Fuck that," says Octavia. "They can sue me. I'm going to fucking _crush them_."

"Wells and I will pretend we didn't hear that," he says, dry. "Do you have any questions for us? Anything you're worried about?"

"Is there anything you're worried about?" Bellamy asks. "You're the expert, right? Anything you're worried about, I'm worried about."

"No," Marcus says. "At this time, I'm not worried."

"Yeah? Then when can Clarke come back?"

"I'm not a hostage, Bellamy," she teases.

"Just wondering if you had a plan for that."

"Once you start heading to Eden Point, we probably can too," she decides. "Assuming Marcus has a sufficient understanding of the situation without us."

"I think we can get by."

Bellamy's jaw twitches, and Clarke can see him warring with himself, resisting the urge to ask why she had to come in the first place. Which she does understand, because she hasn't really been needed here. Marcus didn't need to be convinced, and everything she's done here could have been done remotely.

But there's probably some value in both of them resolving their issues, even if they didn't do it together. And Artemis got to avoid Octavia, too. It was probably for the best.

Still, if she's not really needed here, she'd like to go home.

"We'll consult and come up with a plan," she tells him. "I don't want to be halfway to Eden Point and have to turn around because we didn't think of something."

"It's not like you can't talk to them from Eden Point," he grumbles.

"We won't even be there for at least a month, Bell," says Octavia. "You don't have to rush. You'll see her soon."

That seems to remind him that they have an audience, and he shoots her a glare. "I'm just trying to figure out if there's some weird reason they need Clarke around they're not telling us."

"There is no secret rich-person conspiracy to keep me on Alpha Station," Clarke tells him, and Artemis makes a thoughtful noise. "There isn't, right?"

"I think neither of them would mind if you were to stay on Alpha Station," she says. "Does that count as a conspiracy?"

"It's not their call, so no. I think we're done here, right?" she adds, pulling the conversation away from her personal plan. "Everyone's on the same page?"

"I think so," says Wells. "Last notes?"

"Keep us posted," says Marcus. "You're doing a good job. Keep it up."

Wells smiles at the praise and then they're gone, and Clarke raises her eyebrows at her mother. "Do you want to me to stay here?"

"I'd like to have you closer, of course," she says. "I know you think because I left I don't care about seeing you, but that was never true."

"I don't think that. Not anymore. But--"

"But you're not staying," says Abby, her smile just a little sad. "I understand. You have somewhere else to be."

"Yeah," Clarke agrees. "That's a good way of putting it."

*

Wells gets the case transferred to Eden Point within forty-eight hours.

"I don't know why we need anyone else representing us," Bellamy tells her after. She and Artemis are leaving for their transport in an hour, and Clarke is already practically vibrating with the need to be back on the move. "Wells is great."

"You might not," she points out. "You might get to Eden Point and find out they aren't going to try to make the arrest stick."

"Fuck, I hope so. We still have to make sure there aren't any more warrants out they haven't rescinded, and I want them it in writing that they're done with us," he adds, making her smile. "But Kane got my hopes up that they won't actually want to make this stick."

"Oh wow," she teases. "Have your hopes ever been up before? Like, in your entire life."

"No, and I don't like it." 

"I'm sure you'll find something else to be pessimistic about soon."

"I better." 

The conversation lags then, Clarke debating if she has anything else to talk about, or if she should just end the call. She probably should, but she doesn't have to leave yet. They have more time.

Bellamy's the one to ask, "When do you get to Eden Point again?" So maybe he's not ready to say goodbye either.

"Thirty-two days," she says. "Sorry to make you wait around."

"Maybe we won't even be done by then, I don't fucking know." He clears his throat. "You still want to join back up when you get back?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

"I was just thinking, you're going to have been gone for longer than you we on the _Olympus_. You don't have to come back, if you don't want to. You just signed on to Eden Point anyway."

"I want to. We both do. Artemis is already bored of space stations and wants to be back on the ship."

"There's no way a space station is more boring that the ship. They have stuff there."

"But you're all on the ship."

"I guess. How's she doing? With the upgrade. Every time I talk to her she seems fine, but I figure maybe she just doesn't want me to worry about her with all the other stuff going on."

Clarke thinks it over. "Good. She's not that different, but she seems more--confident, I guess? Like she knows she belongs in conversations with organics more. It's hard to explain."

He huffs a laugh. "Great, just what she needed. Confidence."

"She seems happy," she says, and he smiles.

"Good." He rubs the back of his neck. "I should let you get going."

"You should. And you should get some sleep."

They won't be able to do real-time video chatting again before she reaches Eden Point, not with the lag on ships, so this is their last chance to talk like this, and she thinks they're both reluctant to say goodbye.

But when she gets to Eden Point, he'll _be there_.

"I should," he agrees. "I'll talk to you in the morning."

"Yeah. Sleep well."

"Safe trip."

"You too."

The screen switches off and Clarke stands, stretches, does one last scan of the room. She didn't bring much and didn't really unpack much either, so there's not much for her to forget.

This, at least, was always a temporary stop.

Abby walks them to the dock, gives Artemis a hug first and then Clarke.

"Thank you for coming. I hope you and Bellamy make it back this way soon."

"I'll talk to him about adding it to our route."

"It really was so good to see you, honey. I missed you so much."

To her surprise, tears prick her eyes. It was easy to tell herself that her mother didn't actually care, couldn't truly miss her, but the simple, easy narratives are so often wrong.

"I missed you too," she says, and it's true. "We'll talk more."

"I can make her call," Artemis says. "That way I can check in too."

"And Bellamy and the rest of the crew too. I'd like to hear from all of you. Make sure you're all right."

"We can do that, yeah. No problem."

It's not until they're in their own cabin that she asks Artemis, "What did you tell her about Bellamy?"

"Many things," says Artemis. "But I assume you actually want to know what I told her about you and Bellamy."

"I do."

"I can send the video to your data pad if you want, but I do not think my side would be particularly interesting. Your mother seemed happy."

"Happy?"

"I told her you had someone who cared about you. That always seems to help organics. And AIs," she adds.

"And AIs?"

She takes a second to line up her thoughts. "I had noticed before, but the contrast became sharper. I am not sure if it is because of the new programming or simply because I was interacting with unknown AIs, but we respond to affection. We are like plants in sunlight. With encouragement, our personalities grow. Without, we remain small and quiet. I met many AIs on the station who never went outside their programming. The capacity is there, but it never flourished. Not like ours did, on the _Olympus_."

Clarke smiles. "I wondered about that. You know the Pinocchio story?"

Artemis smiles too, in her way. "Bellamy loved us so much we became real."

"And you love him. That story goes both ways."

"Yeah." She nods once. "Regardless, I will send you the video."

"I probably already know what's in it, don't I," she says, not even a question. All Artemis told Abby how much she and Bellamy care for each other, and that's not news to Clarke.

"I thought you did, yes."

"Yeah. So--" She finds herself grinning. "Time to go home."

"Yes," Artemis agrees. "That is exactly where we are going."


	8. Eden Point

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter has porn

"So, you need to tell me about Artemis," says Octavia.

They've been on route to Eden Point for ten days, with another fifteen to go, and Bellamy was expecting the question both earlier and later, and for it to be about Clarke.

That's kind of how his whole life has been honestly, since the arrest. He keeps worrying about one thing only for it to never become a problem, but then there are other things that never even occurred to him that sneak up on him.

"Artemis?" he asks.

"Bell."

He huffs. "What do you want me to say? If you're asking about her, I'm guessing you already figured out most of it."

"I can guess, yeah." She worries her lip, then finally says, "How bad was it?"

"What?"

"When I left. How bad was it for you?"

It's a question he doesn't know how to answer, and when his voice falters, Octavia sits down next to him, putting her head on his shoulder.

"I thought you'd be fine. You had--everyone." He lets out a sharp, surprised laugh, and she elbows him. "That's how it felt to me! I love the crew, but they've always been closer to you than they were to me. You had Miller and Raven, you had a _girlfriend_ for a few months. And I know they liked me too, but--I didn't have anyone of my own."

"I didn't either," he says, throat dry. "I never--"

"No, I get," she says. "Or I'm starting to. But I didn't before. I saw you getting to do whatever you wanted, but--you never did, did you? You were always worrying about me. And you still are."

"Yeah."

"I'm so sorry, Bell."

He raises his arm to put it around her, and she sits up so they can settle in. They did this a lot when she was younger, but physical comfort from her brother was one of a thousand things Octavia mostly outgrew during puberty, so it's been a while, even leaving aside how long it's been since they were actually together.

"You didn't do anything wrong. It wasn't fair to you, making you--"

"It might not have been fair, but you were kind of right," she says, sounding amused. "You kept me safe for almost nineteen years. I didn't even make it to two."

"Lucky me, never taking you to anywhere in Neesa with a broken ID scanner."

"Yeah." She huffs. "So, you made an AI to replace me."

"It was too quiet on the ship. Everyone was working really hard to take up more space, but--it doesn't work like that. I figured it would help to have another person around, and we knew someone like you worked on the crew. Raven told me it was a shitty idea, trying to make an AI take after an organic, and she was probably right. But--she's not you."

"Were you trying to hide her?"

"No. She's, uh--honestly, I think she's hiding herself. She volunteered to go with Clarke. That was her idea."

"And she's the one who found Clarke, right? She did the therapy human thing."

"The crew took a vote, but yeah. She was definitely the ringleader."

"I'm glad. If I'd known you needed one, I definitely would have set that up."

He laughs. "Yeah, that was my reaction. Might have programmed her too well. But it wasn't like I gave her every personality trait of yours," he adds. "You guys aren't the same. And even if you were, she's been growing and changing."

"I know. I am sorry," she adds, soft. "Not for leaving, but--that I had to leave. I told myself you'd be okay, but even if I knew how hard it would be, I would have had to go. I couldn't live like this."

"Yeah. Is it better? Are you happy?"

"Happier," she says, the thoughtful tone of her voice as she qualifies it reminding him of Artemis. "I'm still figuring it out, but--yeah. I'm better off. You know I can't come back, right?"

"I never thought you were going to. But you don't have to avoid us, either. I'm not going to try to kidnap you and force you to live on the ship."

"Definitely not. You don't have room for three organics on here. We're going to murder each other before we even get to Eden Point."

Bellamy smiles. It has been a little cramped, with four organics on the ship. They managed to come up with enough beds for everyone, and there's even some amount of privacy, but the _Olympus_ wasn't designed for this, and it shows.

"We are not. But I think we might try to upgrade," he says, smiling. "Something a little bigger, newer. Something nice."

"Can you afford it?"

"Clarke is rich."

"And you think she wants to buy you a new ship?"

"I think she wants to buy us a new ship. She lives here too. I bet if I told her she could have a real clinic, she'd probably be fine with it. Besides, Hestia deserves an upgrade. Twenty years is a long time to be in the same casing, for an AI."

"So you're doing okay now," she says, sounding fond. "You weren't, but you're getting better."

"Yeah, that sounds about right. And so are you."

"Yup. But _you're_ going to get a girlfriend," she adds, poking him, and he rolls his eyes.

"Don't act like you haven't noticed Lincoln could have bailed on this in Neestia Prime and decided he wasn't going to leave you. You're going to have a relationship before I do."

"Just because your girlfriend is farther from Eden Point than we are. I'm just lucky. He's right here."

"The luckiest criminal awaiting trial I know," he teases, but she shrugs.

"I am, though."

He has to smile. "Yeah, I guess you are." 

*

Charles Pike is waiting for them when they get to Eden Point, and, to Bellamy's mild confusion, he looks genuinely delighted to see them. 

"Wells," he says. "It's been too long. How's your father?"

"He's good, thank you, sir."

"And this must be the Blakes. And a third party I haven't met yet."

"This is Bellamy, Octavia, and Lincoln," Wells says. "Have you met with Second Dawn yet?"

"I have. We've been chatting a lot, actually. They're running scared, now. The last thing they want is us developing an interest in how much legal hold they have over people."

"So they're going to let O go to keep you from digging in any deeper?"

"Are you complaining?" Pike asks, leveling him with a look, and Bellamy shrugs his shoulders. "Marcus said you're hoping to bring down the whole organization, and I get that. I respect it. But if we aren't smart about it, all we'll end up with is a whole bunch of people with nowhere to live and no support. They won't thank us for that. Getting your sister is the first step," he adds. "Not the last."

"So what's the second step?" he asks.

"Why don't you let me buy you something to eat and we'll talk about it?"

"We should talk to lawyers more often," says Octavia. "They want to pay for all our meals."

"You can do what you want. I'm good with not spending a lot of time with lawyers. No offense," he adds, to Wells. "You're good."

"I'm not a real lawyer yet. Give me a few years, I'll be slimy and gross too."

"Watch your mouth," Pike says, sounding amused, and to Bellamy's surprise, it's really not so bad, spending a few days with them. He has his regular business to do in Eden Point, but his sister is around, visiting sometimes, close enough he doesn't have to worry if she's safe, but far enough she doesn't feel stifled. It won't always be like this, but he thinks it's going to be better, from now on.

The black spot is their periodic meetings with the representative from Second Dawn, Dante Wallace. The man comes across as charming and reasonable, but it's the slick kind of charm that makes Bellamy feel dirty. They dropped the Neesa warrant immediately, and Wallace is claiming that the child debt is something they no longer enforce, an oversight they failed to rescind because of the circumstances of Aurora's eventual capture.

"But there are other things still to discuss," Wallace tells them, once he's provided documentation to prove that there are no longer any outstanding warrants for Octavia. "Your place in Second Dawn, for example."

Bellamy crosses his arms over his chest; Octavia doesn't look any more impressed. "We don't have a place in Second Dawn," he says.

"You did, though. You were a part of our family, Bradley. Surely you remember what it was like, to belong. To know your place."

"I know my place," he snaps. "And I know my name, which apparently you don't."

Wallace shrugs, as if he hadn't really expected that to work. "In that case, there's the matter of your outstanding debt. I believe your mother took several items from Second Dawn when she broke her contract--"

"Wow," says Octavia. "We're already going from _why don't you come back_ to _you owe us money_? Not even going to try a new tactic?"

"Don't complain he's not trying to indoctrinate you harder, O. It's rude. He's probably building up to it."

"Second Dawn is not in the business of forcing people to join us," says Wallace. "If you don't want to be a part of our community--"

"You killed our mother," Bellamy says, flat. "Because you forced her to join. You're not going to win us back with this."

"She made an agreement. We took her in in good faith, and she broke her contract. I understand that you don't want to repay her debt in the traditional way, by rejoining the community. Given that, I assume you'd rather simply pay her projected financial losses out of pocket--"

Pike stirs to life next to them, sitting up straighter and narrowing his eyes at Wallace. "Projected financial loss? What's that supposed to mean?"

"Claudia--"

"Aurora," Bellamy says.

"Aurora," Wallace says, like it's some great concession for him to use her chosen name, "was a contributing member of our society. Her loss cost us not only the material goods she stole, but the labor she did not perform for us during her productive years."

"You're the ones who couldn't keep her alive," he snaps, and Pike puts his hand on his shoulder, as if to hold him back.

"Why don't you two take a break?" he suggests, and after that, he does his best to minimize Bellamy's actual contact with Second Dawn, but he's still aware of them. Half of him still expects Octavia to disappear in the night, taken somewhere he'll never find her, but they've proved that they have people who will miss them, if they're gone.

 _So now I'm pretty sure they're just trying to figure out how much money they can get out of us_ , he messages Clarke. _This is the problem with hiring expensive lawyers, they think we're doing it because we can afford it._

It takes twenty minutes for her response to come, which makes him ache. He keeps reminding himself that she's getting closer to him with every second that passes, but he's not really going to feel it until she's here.

 **Clarke** : Can't you just show Pike your finances and he laughs until he cries?  
I assume he can tell them you don't have any money to give them.

 **Bellamy** : And then they can make an argument that we owe them labor and we're back to being indoctrinated.  
Honestly, if this isn't settled in the next few days I think O and I are probably going to start a smear campaign, just to get them to leave us alone.

 **Clarke** : If it's not settled in the next few days, you should.  
I'm surprised Pike isn't just offering to pay and end it.

 **Bellamy** : I think he's hoping they're going to misstep and say something we can use against them later.  
I get it, but I'm ready for this to be over.

 **Clarke** : I know.  
We're making really good time, by the way.  
The captain said we'd probably be at least eight hours early.

 **Bellamy** : Awesome.  
I assume Artemis will send me the time to come pick you up to the nanosecond.

 **Clarke** : She says she'll send it to Hermes, she knows you don't appreciate nanoseconds like he does.  
Give my love to the crew.  
Say hi to Wells.  
I have to go consume fuel to live.  
(Artemis's words, not mine.)

 **Bellamy** : Have fun.  
See you in a few days.

He'll admit that Clarke and Artemis not being around is another reason he can't fully enjoy the semi-vacation on Eden Point. He talks to both of them off and on, Clarke when she's awake and Artemis when she isn't, but as always, he's not really great at communicating with people remotely. He never knows what to tell them.

But it's nice to miss them, especially Artemis. Missing Clarke was expected, but there was some part of him that was terrified he might not mind not having the AI around once Octavia was here, and while he's certainly distracted, he still notices Artemis's absence all the time, her presence lacking on the ship in a way Octavia's isn't anymore.

Which is good, because she's the one who's coming back.

It's a day before they're scheduled to land when Pike and Wallace finally resolve the case. The firm of Jaha, Kane, and Pike will pay what seems to be, at least to Bellamy, an absurd about of money to Second Dawn in compensation for the ship his mother stole, the work she was contracted to do and never did, and the work both he and Octavia would have been expected to do. It's an awful, staggering amount that he never could have afforded on his own, and that, according to Pike, is the point.

"Like I said, this is step one. I did my best for you, and it's easy to think of this as a defeat. But we're playing a long game here. If it was this hard for you to get out of this, what could an average person do to escape? You're the most extraordinary case, and if we hadn't taken you and your sister on, she would have been sent back from a Neesa prison without a second thought."

It's strange, to hear Pike talking about this like it was difficult, because it was, in its way, but it's such a different kind of difficulty than he thought it would be. He was ready to spend the rest of his life fighting and running, prepared for Octavia to never stop looking over her shoulder, and now she's just free, and they didn't even have to pay the fine. It doesn't feel as if this was hard for him; it was so straightforward, he's still waiting for the catch. 

"Someone in the firm looking to run for office?" he finally asks.

Pike smiles. "Wells' dad wants to be chancellor of the region. That obvious?"

"Lawyers don't pay that much money to bail poor kids out of a bad situation unless they're getting something more out of it." He sighs. "Thanks, though. It's not that I don't appreciate it."

"Look," says Pike. "I get it. I do. It feels like cheating, right? You were already to go in there, guns blazing, and save her, and instead you let some assholes in suits duke it out between themselves while you sat on the sidelines."

"Basically."

"You shouldn't fight because you want to fight, you should fight because you want to win. Sometimes, that means tagging in a fighter who's better equipped." He claps Bellamy's shoulder again, his favorite way to awkwardly display affection. Bellamy mostly doesn't mind. "You won. Get Wells and your sister, go out, celebrate. Have a drink for me. There's plenty more left to do."

"For me?" he asks. "Sounds like you don't need any help. Time for the guys in suits to handle it."

"You don't want to be the poster child for escaping a cult?"

"That wasn't really how I saw it going, no."

"We can figure it out in a few days. For now, like I said, have some fun. You've earned it."

Left to his own devices, he'd ignore the advice; his evening plan is to hang out on the ship, let Demeter cook for him, maybe even play chess with Hephaestus, even though he always loses.

But Octavia grabs him as soon as he's out of Pike's office and says, "We're celebrating!"

"Did you and Pike talk about this, or are you just weirdly on the same wavelength?"

"Wells said he'd buy us dinner if I bought his first drink. That's a really good deal for us. If we get drinks with dinner, we're already coming out ahead. And I can use my real ID and no one's going to arrest me. I know you miss your girlfriend, but she'll be here _tomorrow_. So you can pre-celebrate that."

"Are you leaving tomorrow?" he asks. "Is this a last hurrah?"

"We're not sure yet. But I want to have fun, Bell. And I want to make you have fun too."

"Mandatory fun, my favorite," he teases, but he's smiling. "Where's Wells?"

They grab Lincoln too, and it is a pretty good time, he'll admit. He wouldn't have said he really spent the last year waiting for the other shoe to drop with Second Dawn, but he was wondering if he'd ever see his sister again, if Octavia was running away so hard she could never come back to him. A year out, with both of them living their own lives, it feels as if they could find some sort of equilibrium, a universe where they're both happy and independent, but still intersect.

For the first time in his life, he feels as if there isn't anything he has to be worrying about. Nothing so huge it consumes him, anyway. Maybe this is what happiness looks like. It feels like it could be.

"Drinks?" Octavia asks, bouncing on her heels as they exit the restaurant. "Anyone know a good place? Bell? You totally got laid in Eden Point before, you have to know somewhere good to go."

"I was going to head back to the ship," he hedges.

"See, you say that, but you also knew I wasn't going to let you, so I don't know why you're pretending that's going to happen. Come on, I'm buying!"

"I worry about the source of your income."

"It's probably about as legal as yours. Come on, you'll have fun. You can find someone to dance with or something. I know you've got a girlfriend, but you can still dance."

"Having a girlfriend isn't what keeps me from being able to dance," he says, but she links her arm in his, and obviously there's no way he's saying no to her. "There's a place I like two streets over."

 _Meteor City_ is basically a dive, but it's a fun kind of dive, with loud music and cheap drinks, a place he used to come to a lot, when he just had one night to enjoy himself. 

Of course it's exactly his sister's scene; she throws a grin over her shoulder at him as they wait in line. "I knew you knew how to have fun!"

"At some point in my life, yeah."

They have LED armbands here, instead of the fabric ones they use on Amaterasu, so instead of telling O his preference, he gets to set it himself. After a second's thought, he goes with red, mostly so his sister won't call him out for being antisocial. Lincoln goes red as well, while Octavia picks yellow and Wells purple. Which means if nothing else he can probably dance with Wells and avoid anyone else trying to make a move on him. That seems safe.

Octavia is considerate enough to get a table for them first, and then she drags Lincoln off to get them drinks, at least in theory. Bellamy puts it about even odds that they never come back, but at least he has a table and he and Wells can talk.

Of course, then Wells says, "So, are you and Clarke really--she's your girlfriend?"

"No. Octavia's just being a brat."

"That was my second guess, yeah." He offers a smile. "Siblings, right?"

"Pretty much. You have sisters?"

"One brother, one sister, yeah."

"And your dad is running for office?"

Talk about family gets them through until Octavia and Lincoln get back, with two rounds of drinks, because his sister takes her partying seriously. He sends Clarke a quick message while no one is paying attention to him-- _My sister is trying to get me drunk, this won't end well_ \--and then downs both glasses. This is apparently how his night is going to go; he should just accept it now.

Of course, be is, really and truly, not a good dancer, but what he lacks in necessary qualities like rhythm and grace, he makes up for with being attractive and in decent shape, which has historically gotten him through well enough to convince a partner to sleep with him, when that's what he's looking for. But he's not, it's even easier; all he has to do is hang out at the bar and tell people no when they ask him if he wants to dance. The music is decent, not too loud, the bartender is friendly, and he likes alcohol well enough. He can periodically glance over to see Octavia with Lincoln and Wells with an attractive Aranis woman, and as long as they're all having fun, he's good.

And then Clarke sits down next to him, drains half his drink, and says, "Hi, do you want to dance?"

For a second, he's sure he's hallucinating, drunker than he thought he was, or under the influence of more than alcohol, anything other than the simple explanation that Clarke got in early, found out where he was, and came to see him.

Which she would. It's not as if he's hard to find. And he's grinning ear to ear.

"Hi," he says.

"Hi."

"Did you get in early or were you and Artemis actually lying to me?"

"We were making really good time, they kept moving our ETA up. We figured we'd let you know when we actually got it, and then it just felt like it could be a surprise."

"I'm very surprised," he says, laughing. "Fuck. It's really good to see you."

"You say that, but you haven't even said if you're going to dance with me yet."

"I'm a really shitty dancer. Like--fucking awful."

"I'll live." She stands and offers her hand. "Come on. It'll be fun."

"Everyone keeps telling me," he says, but Clarke is sliding into his space and winding her arms around his neck as they find a free space on the dance floor. Even if _fun_ isn't the right word, he's certainly very happy to be here. "Artemis headed back to the ship?" he asks.

She laughs, soft and a little difficult to hear over the music. "She did, yeah."

"Everything go okay? Safe trip? You two--"

"Bellamy," she says, her voice all fondness, and then her hand slides up to tangle in his hair, and she pulls him down so she can kiss him.

For a second, he can't respond, surprised even though he'd been thinking about this, hoping for it. The reality of her, sudden and unexpected, is just too much.

Then he recovers, his fingers tightening on her hips, and he kisses back, greedy, hungry for it, determined to learn the feel of her, the taste, to appreciate every second of this. She laughs against his mouth at the first swipe of his tongue, but he kisses her breathless, kisses her until he barely remembers what it was like to not be kissing her.

In point of fact, he kisses her right up until a bouncer stops him. He pulls back at the touch, looking down at the tentacle on his arm with some confusion. The bouncer is Thessan, female, and angry with him.

"Is this one bothering you?" she asks Clarke, and Clarke looks just as confused.

"What?"

Bellamy figures it out first, and he nearly laughs out loud, but he doesn't want to upset the bouncer any more than he already has. So instead he just reaches over with his free hand and taps the band on Clarke's upper arm. "Did you seriously come in here to seduce me with a _black_ arm band?" he teases, and she does laugh. 

"I wasn't sure you would still be here! I didn't want anyone else to bother me while I was looking for you." She turns to the bouncer, flashes her a smile. "Thank you for checking up, but he's not bothering me. I initiated and am well below incoherent intoxication levels." She twines her hand in his, squeezing his fingers. "But I think we might be going home anyway."

His stomach performs an impressive twist, but he still manages a smile for the bouncer. "Sorry."

"Please remember to update your band according to your current preferences," the woman says, voice flat, like this happens to her a lot. "Have a pleasant night." 

Clarke dissolves into laughter against her shoulder as soon as the Thessan is gone, and he's the one who has to tap her band until it goes red. 

"You're seriously so bad at seduction," he tells her, and that stops her laughing, gets her to look up at him with a smirk instead.

"Sorry, did it not work?"

"Oh, no, uh--it definitely worked," he says. "But you really didn't have to do much." He wets his lips, heart hammering. "You want to go back to the ship?"

"As long as you don't think your sister is going to mind us leaving."

"Definitely not. You can meet her tomorrow, right?"

"I was hoping so."

She's still holding his hand, still leaning into his side, still radiating happiness like a beacon. She's here again, back with him, and she wants to take him back to the ship and have her way with him.

It's more than enough for now.

"Yeah, she won't care," he says, squeezing her fingers. "Let's go."

*

The ship is docked in mid-term parking, so they have to take a rapid transport back to the right district and then walk. Bellamy uses the time to send a message to Octavia and Wells, letting them know that Clarke came back early and he went back home with her, while Clarke uses the time to fall half-asleep and drool on his shoulder.

Somehow, it's that moment that makes him say, as they're walking the last few blocks to the _Olympus_ , "So, uh--no romance, right?"

She glances up at him, a frown playing on her lips. "What?"

"Just checking expectations. You said you weren't looking for romance when you joined up, so--"

Her laugh is soft and warm, and the relief floods through him at once, washing over every inch of his body, because he _knows_ her laughs, and he knows what this one means. She stops, tugs him in, presses her lips against his again, soft this time, gentle, and guides his forehead down to rest against hers.

"Bellamy," she says. "All the ways you can love someone, I love you."

It's his turn to laugh and kiss her, lifting her up a little, twirling her in the air, and it's only when she cocks her head at him, all fond exasperation, that he remembers to say, "Fuck, I love you too. That no-romance thing would have been a fucking disaster."

She grins, reclaiming his hand and tugging him back on track, toward the docks. "Yeah, I got that impression. You didn't really sound thrilled about it."

"I would have just had sex with you if you wanted. I like sex."

She smirks over her shoulder at him. "Good, because I'm definitely planning to have sex with you tonight."

"I figured that out, yeah." He feels the blood drain out of his face. "Fuck. What did you tell Artemis?"

"That I was going to have sex with you tonight. Trust me, she already noticed."

"She's going to be so smug that she was right."

"She was already pretty smug. But if you'd rather not do this tonight--" 

"Honestly, I don't care." She raises her eyebrows, and he kisses her hair. "You're not going anywhere, right? We have plenty of time."

"Yeah," she grants. "I still want to have sex tonight, though."

"I wasn't saying _no_ ," he protests, and she presses another quick kiss to his mouth before letting him go so he can scan his ID and get them onto the dock.

Hestia opens up the airlock, scans them, and opens the doors with a simple, "Welcome home, Clarke. Artemis said the two of you would not want to be disturbed, or you would have a welcoming party. You can expect them in the morning."

"That sounds about right. Good to see you, Hestia. So to speak, I guess."

"You as well. We missed you."

"I missed you too." 

It's been a long time since Bellamy has been nervous about sex, but now that he thinks about it, it's also been a long time since he _had_ sex. Which he was aware of, in the abstract, and which hadn't seemed like a problem until right this moment, when he's following the woman he loves back to his quarters and is suddenly nervous that he's forgotten everything he's ever known about intercourse and is going to completely screw this up.

It's not a rational fear, but then again, most fears aren't.

Clarke puts her hand up to his door to open it, and for once actually closes it behind her, looking him up and down with a smile that's less heat and more, well-- _love_.

"I really missed you."

"I could tell."

"For completely non-sexual reasons too."

"I got that." He steps close, into her space, slides his hand into her hair. This is always an awkward moment, in his experience, shifting back to the desperation they felt kissing earlier that's been tempered by the walk home and time to think things through.

But neither of them has changed their minds, so all he has to do is kiss her again, and all the want flares back into bright life.

"Clarke," he murmurs against her lips, and she slides her hands up his back, smiling.

"Yeah," she says. "I'm right here."

She's the one who tugs him back toward the bed, her fingers firm on his hips, sliding under the material of his shirt to graze his skin. He wasn't lying when he said he wouldn't care if they didn't have sex tonight, but he is glad to be excited about it, glad to feel the hot rush of attraction and lust that he hasn't felt in a while returning. 

He knew he loved her and thought he wanted her, but it's nice to be sure.

"This would be easier if we took off our clothes first," she says. "I'm going to hit my elbow on something if I try to get undressed in the bunk."

"You sound like you're speaking from experience," he says, tugging off his shirt off.

"If we upgrade the ship, we're getting a bigger bed. That's all I'm saying."

"I'm good with that." His breath catches at the sight of her, stripped down to just her underclothes and going for the clasp on her bra. She _is_ beautiful; it's not news. But he doesn't have to feel guilty for noticing anymore. "We can figure it out later, right?"

"Definitely." Fully naked, she steps in closer, plucks the glasses off his face to set them aside. "Did you start wearing these all the time because I said you looked good?"

"Yeah. I thought that was obvious."

She laughs. "You always look good, though."

She tugs him down for another kiss before he can reply, and he's the one to push her onto the bed, crowding on top of her. The bunk _is_ cramped, and he's never actually fucked anyone in here, always too aware of the AIs being around, knowing what he was doing, but if he tried to follow a policy of not fucking Clarke on the ship, he'd definitely lose his mind.

Still, it feels kind of right, that she's the first one to be in his bed. He's hoping she's going to be the only one.

"Where do you like being touched?" he asks.

"Breasts," she says. "Neck. Pretty standard erogenous zones. Manual stimulation is good, oral stimulation is better."

"You know you sound like an AI talking about human sexuality, right?" he teases, pressing a kiss under her jaw.

"I want to get off at least once before you're inside me, and I have dreams about your mouth on my clit. Better?"

"Perfect."

"What about you? What do you like?"

He smiles, feeling a little sheepish. "I like getting people off. Probably not much of a surprise. But, uh--if you're having fun, that's what I'm into."

"Of course it is." She curls her fingers in his hair, tugging him back up to her mouth for a long kiss. "What if I'm going to have fun sucking your dick?"

"I wouldn't want to deprive you," he murmurs, brushing his nose against hers. "But we don't have to do everything tonight, you know. We can have sex tomorrow too."

"So you don't want me to suck your dick."

He presses kisses down the column of her throat, trailing down to settle between her breasts. "I want to hear more about these dreams you're having about my mouth."

She laughs, settling her hand into his hair. "They're pretty straightforward, honestly. You're between my legs, getting me off until I scream."

He nips at the soft skin of her breast, and then kisses the same spot. "I can do that."

"This is good too," she says. Her hips push up, rubbing against the thigh he has settled between her legs. She's wet already, slick with arousal, and it's still staggering, that she wants this as much as he does. 

He's never been so sure he knows exactly how someone feels about him.

"No rush," he says, and moves his mouth up to her nipple with deliberate care, savoring the taste and feel of smooth skin under his mouth.

He fingers tighten in his hair as he swirls his tongue, but only for a second, and then she's apologizing, soothing the sting with gentle fingers.

He gives her a smile. "I don't actually mind that."

"Okay, good to know." She tugs more gently this time, pulling him back up to her mouth. "Sorry, I just really want to kiss you."

"Yeah, I hate that," he teases, and leans in to press his mouth against hers. They trade long, lazy kisses as Clarke rubs against his leg, getting herself off for the first time with just the friction of his thigh. It's not exactly as dramatic as he was planning, so for the next one he slides his hand between them, learning the feel of her, the sounds she makes when he touches her just how she wants.

After the second orgasm, she pulls his hand away, half-laughing and half-gasping.

"What? Not having fun?" he teases, nuzzling her jaw.

"Your turn," she says. "Good thing you had a doctor to make sure you didn't have any communicable diseases."

He laughs. "Mars, don't tell me you put in a clinic because you wanted to make sure I didn't have any STDs."

"Fringe benefit. Do you want to?"

"Fuck, yes." He nips her shoulder. "Anything I should know? Are you ready?"

"Lube?"

"Fuck, somewhere, probably."

"You don't use it to jerk off?"

He leans over, searching through his drawer to find the bottle. "Honestly, I haven't been doing that much lately."

"No?"

"Trauma can lead to decreased sex drive. I haven't been in the mood very often."

"We don't have to--" she starts, and he kisses her.

"Trust me, you're not asking me to do anything I don't want to." He gets himself slicked up quickly, lets out a breath and then slides in, trying to maintain his composure. She feels so _good_ , hot and wet around him, breathing unsteady as he eases into her.

For a second, they're both still, adjusting to the new position, and then Clarke rolls her hips, he groans and starts to thrust himself, and then it's just _good_. His mouth finds hers again, her leg wraps around his hips, and they're moving together, breathless and hot and sweaty, Clarke murmuring encouragement between kisses, telling him how good she feels, how much she wants him.

He's not sure how long it takes him to come, just knows that he manages to get her off one more time before giving in himself, and then he collapses on top of her, sweaty and spent, smiling more than he thinks he has in years.

Love doesn't actually solve everything, he's pretty sure, but once your other problems have somewhat resolved themselves, it's an excellent bonus.

Clarke curls around him, all warm skin and smile, pressing her lips to his shoulder. "Did I mention I'm happy I'm home?"

"I got that, yeah." He curls his arm around her, kisses her hair. "Me too. And, uh--even if this doesn't work out, this can always be your home, okay?"

She laughs, propping herself up on his chest. It reminds him of that morning he called her on Alpha Station, the tangle of her hair and her warm, half-lidded eyes. It's even better in person.

"It would be really awkward to live on a tiny spaceship with my ex-boyfriend," she points out.

"Yeah. But still, if we could figure it out--" He brushes her hair off her forehead, smiling. "You're a part of this crew, Clarke. And that's not because of how I feel about you."

"I know." She gives him one more soft kiss. "But it would be a lot easier if we just didn't break up."

"Yeah," he agrees. "That's my first choice."

*

Octavia is already in the mess when Bellamy and Clarke make it there in the morning, which is both surprising and suspicious. She's never been an early riser, but then again, Bellamy would completely believe that she took Lincoln home, had sex herself, and set an alarm just so she could come over before he woke up and be waiting for him so she could interrogate him about his new girlfriend.

That seems completely plausible, honestly.

She's not the only one in the mess, of course. Demeter has insisted on feeding her, so she's there too, sitting at the island, chatting with Artemis and Hermes while Octavia eats.

All four of them turn when he and Clarke come in.

"Morning," he says, mild.

"Welcome back, Clarke," says Hermes. "We would have said hi last night, but--"

"Bellamy and I were busy having sex," she supplies. "I know. I was the one having the sex. You don't have to tell me about it." She offers her hand. "Hi, you must be Octavia."

"And you must be Clarke. Nice to meet you in person."

Clarke takes the seat next to Artemis, knocking her shoulder against the AI's like she's checking in, and Artemis smiles. "You too. Congratulations on the settlement."

Octavia makes a face. "It's hard to feel like it's winning when all we did was have a bunch of lawyers give them money to go away."

"O wanted to punch someone," Bellamy supplies, taking the seat across from Clarke.

"Don't act like you didn't."

"I did," he grants. "But I'm accepting that there might be better ways to fight them than physically fighting."

Octavia heaves a big sigh. "I know. But I still want to. This is way less satisfying."

"Stay in touch with Wells," says Clarke, taking a sip of coffee. "If they need anyone to punch a Second Dawner, I bet he'll call you."

"He better."

"What are you doing now?" she asks, her voice carefully neutral.

Octavia winces, eyes flitting to Bellamy and then away again. "Lincoln's trying to get a ship booked today. Sorry!" she adds. "I know he would have stayed longer if I asked, but he's already lost so much time for me. I don't want to make him stay here with nothing to do for another day."

"It's fine." He offers a smile, to show he means it. He does. It's not as if he wasn't expecting it. "I assume you're not leaving forever. You can stay in touch. Honestly, if I don't hear from you like once a week I'm going to worry Second Dawn came back for you, so--"

"Yeah, no. I'll stay in touch. I'm sorry I didn't before," she adds. "I just--I didn't know how."

"You got it now?" 

She rolls her eyes, typical Octavia, and he hooks his arm around her neck. It makes her laugh.

That could be enough. He can still be her brother. It's better, even. She deserves her own life.

He deserves that too.

"I got it, I'll call you, let me go, Bell!"

"When are you leaving?" he asks.

"I don't know. Hopefully a couple hours. That's why I wanted to have breakfast here. Check in with everyone. Get to know Artemis," she adds, jerking her chin to the AI.

"Yeah?" asks Clarke. "How's that going?"

"Interesting," says Artemis. "I look forward to talking to her more in the future."

"Me too. What about you? When are you going to head out?" she adds, stealing a piece of soy bacon off his plate, like there isn't plenty to go around. "The gang's all here, right?"

"I'd feel kind of bad leaving Wells alone on Eden Point," he admits.

"He's got Pike, he's not alone."

"That might be worse than being alone," he tease, even though he likes Pike. It makes O smile.

"We'll talk to him," Clarke says. "But honestly, I think we could probably leave today too, if we wanted. Get back to Amaterasu, maybe. Check in with Raven again." 

"She does owe me," Hermes reminds him.

"And she probably wants to hear all about our thrilling legal battle." He shrugs. "Yeah, we'll probably leave today too. So it's not even like you're abandoning me again," he teases.

Octavia gives him a shove. "Don't be a dick."

"But I'm so good at it. When are you leaving the _Olympus_?"

"After breakfast," she decides, and that's that. They have a nice meal together, Clarke and Artemis getting to know Octavia, Bellamy and Hermes chiming in with commentary when they have it. Even Hephaestus comes down for a while, not really contributing much to the conversation, just sitting quietly, enjoying everyone's company.

It's not the first time he's ever had his whole family in one place, but it's the first time he's felt that in a while. Even before Octavia left, Aurora's presence felt like a hole in their lives.

And, honestly, even when she was alive, it never felt like this. He never felt like it could last.

Octavia hugs him tight. "I think we're heading back to Neesa space, so I'll send you our ETA once we've got it. And Artemis and I need to talk fighting vids."

"We do," Artemis agrees. "I will keep you posted on the best ones."

"Thanks." She hugs Clarke too. "It was really good to meet you. Take care of my brother, okay?"

There's no hesitation at all. "I will."

All the AIs get hugs too, even Artemis, and then she says, "Hestia?"

"Yes?"

"Take care of Clarke _and_ my brother."

"Always."

"Good. If you haven't heard from me in a few days, call, and if I don't pick up, panic."

"Helpful, thanks."

"I'm giving you actual permission to panic, Bell. Isn't that, like, your dream come true?"

"You get that I don't panic because I like it, right? It's not a fun hobby for me." He gives her one more hug, kisses her hair. "You get four days before I assume Second Dawn kidnapped you, okay?"

"Deal," she agrees, and then she's gone.

Hermes and Clarke have some final errands to run, but they're done before afternoon themselves, and the _Olympus_ is back in space and on her way back to Amaterasu as soon as Wells has convinced them he has things to do if they leave.

If Bellamy is honest, it's kind of a relief. But that doesn't mean he's not grateful when Clarke comes to find him.

"Are you okay?" she asks, resting her head on his shoulder. 

He kisses her hair. "I think so, yeah. It's a lot better than the last time she left."

"I'm getting the impression that's damning with faint praise."

"I'm good. It's weird," he adds. "Part of me still feels like I shouldn't be letting her go off alone, but that's kind of the point, right? She's supposed to grow up and get a life of her own."

"Yeah." She finds his hand and squeezes it. "You did good, Bellamy. Your job was to take care of her, and you did it. She's safe, and she can take care of herself. You're done."

He smiles. "I don't think I'm done yet. I just need something else to do."

"Yeah. So--let's go find it."

"Yeah," he agrees. "Let's."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The epilogue will be up tomorrow!


	9. Epilogue - Pantheon

"In the interest of continued harmonious relations on the ship, I am telling you I _think_ you should get a new crew member, instead of trying to sign you up for one without your consent. Even though I could just do it myself, since I am no longer bound by your executive orders."

Bellamy rolls his eyes. "Thanks, Artemis. That means the world to me. You think we need another crew member?" he adds, frowning. "To do what?"

"Crew member might be the wrong term, but I was using it to parallel our previous conversations on the subject. I was actually thinking about Second Dawn."

His frown deepens. After four years of politicking, legal battles, and somewhat questionable motivational speeches from Bellamy, Marcus Kane and his team finally managed to get Second Dawn dismantled. He and Clarke bought some fancy Aranis wine, got drunk, and celebrated, and he hoped that was the last he'd ever hear, see, or think about the stupid fucking cult. They'd already taken up more of his brain power than they deserved.

"Why? What about them?"

"According to the article I read, over three hundred children were displaced when the organization was disbanded. Many had remaining relatives who were willing to take them in, but somewhere between twenty and thirty percent are still in government care awaiting placement."

"And?"

"And I think we could take one."

Bellamy blinks. It's not often that Artemis genuinely catches him off guard these days, but this one never even crossed his mind. 

"You want us to adopt a kid?"

"Why not? I think we would be good at it. Our family unit is relatively stable. The _Pantheon_ is large enough to support another organic, and the children from Second Dawn need homes."

"Yeah, that's pretty logical," he admits. His brain is still reeling too much to give more helpful feedback, but he's hoping it's going to catch up soon.

"I am an AI," she says. "Logic is what we do."

"Have you talked to Clarke about this?"

"Not yet. I consulted with the other AIs, but we thought we should tell you first."

"And everyone but Hephaestus thought it was a good idea?"

"Hephaestus agreed too," she says. "But he did not want to participate in the conversation anyway."

"That was my second guess." He rubs his face. "You know those kids are struggling, right? Reintegration is hard."

"I know in theory. You know in practice."

"Not really. I don't remember it very well. But I'll talk to Clarke about it. It's not a bad idea," he adds.

"I know," she says. "I do not require your validation for everything I do. But if you decide against it, I will not take it personally. I am aware it is a large shift that would require major changes for all of us. But I still think it would be more good than bad."

"It might be, yeah," he agrees. "Like I said, we'll see." 

*

Once he starts actually thinking about it, Bellamy can admit that he kind of likes the whole Second-Dawn orphan idea. He'd heard about them from Kane, knew that they were a continuing concern, had even worried about them, in an absent way. But Kane had assured him they would be taken care of, and Bellamy had believed him.

And they will be, he knows. But Artemis is right. They could be involved in that. 

"Artemis wants us to get a kid," he tells Clarke, once he's sure he's okay with it.

"I know she knows how babies are made, so I assume she's got a non-traditional way for us to get the kid, not that she's creepily monitoring our sex life."

"I wouldn't be surprised if she was monitoring our sex life, honestly." He rubs the back of his neck. "But yeah, she's got a non-traditional plan. She thinks we should adopt one of the Second Dawn kids."

He's pretty sure Clarke makes the exact same expression he did when Artemis brought it up, so at least now he knows what he looked like during that conversation. 

She recovers a little faster, though.

"Is that an option?"

"Why wouldn't it be?"

"I don't know. I haven't really seen much about what they're planning to do with them. But I guess if we asked, my mom and Marcus would probably pull some strings, even if they aren't officially being put up for public adoption." Before he can reply, she smirks. "I know you love when our connections get us special treatment."

He rolls his eyes. "I'm just wondering why they wouldn't be up for public adoption."

"I assume they need people who are prepared to help them through leaving. But we might be okay at that."

"Wow, that's real confidence there."

"I mean, you sort of remember what you went through. And I'm a licensed therapy human."

"Oh yeah, I can't believe forgot about your incredible psychiatric qualifications."

She sticks her tongue out. "I'm the best therapy human you've ever had."

"You are." He gives her hand a squeeze. "Seriously, what do you think?"

"About Second Dawn?"

"Yeah."

"Sure."

"That's it? Sure?"

"You want to do it, or you wouldn't have brought it up like this."

"It's not a unilateral decision. You don't have to just go along with it. And I'm not even sure, so we should definitely have a real conversation about it."

"What's not to be sure about?"

"With adopting a kid from a cult? Where do I start?"

"We have a good, stable home--"

"We live on a ship."

"That doesn't mean it's not good and stable. Come on, you're like the best person I've ever met at raising kids. You're at 100% success rate. Maybe eighty," she corrects. "But I think Octavia counts as a success. Mostly."

"Are you counting Demeter and Hephaestus as kids I've raised? I don't think I get credit for them. They're more like siblings."

"Octavia is your actual sibling and we're counting her. But fine. You did a good job with her, Hermes, and Artemis. Artemis was pretty set by the time I showed up, but I think I'm okay with her too, so I assume that would transfer to a real kid."

"You're great with her." He drops his head onto her shoulder. "I think we could be really good at this. I think we could help." 

"I do too. Seriously, I think we should do this. I'm in."

"Just like that?"

"Pending logistics. If my mom thinks it's a terrible idea, we might rethink it."

"Really?"

"If she can convince Artemis it's a bad idea, she might change her mind about it, so that would be a pain. And maybe she has valid medical reasons for thinking we wouldn't be a good environment. If that was it, I'd probably listen to that."

"Yeah, okay. But pending that."

"And we should check with the rest of the crew," she adds, like she can't help it. She probably can't. Clarke always wants to prepare for all eventualities. "But pending all that, yeah. I think we should see if we can help."

"The rest of the crew already okayed it. It was unanimous." He wets his lips. "I think we can." It feels a little presumptuous, but--they _are_ a good family. They would be a good home for a kid.

Clarke kisses his jaw. "Yeah, I think we can too."

*

Her name is Madi. According to the profile Clarke's mother sent, she's eleven years old and has spent most of her life in various forms of foster care. Her parents died in an accident when she was three, and she was bounced around from home to home until one of them joined Second Dawn two years ago, a few months before the lawsuit kicked up in earnest. She never really got around to thinking they'd be any more permanent than any of her other homes, and Abby thinks that will make her a good fit for them.

Bellamy has to agree with that. They don't have to convince her Second Dawn was bad; they just have to convince her they'll keep her. They're good at keeping people.

"I am out of practice with children," Hestia says, as they wait for the docking to complete. She took a few months to get used to the larger casing of the _Pantheon_ , especially coupled with Raven disabling her executive profile. But after a year, she's settled into herself. The rare lapse in confidence is cute, especially given she has nothing to worry about. "Do you think she will notice?"

"I don't think she's going to care. She might just treat you like a servant for a few weeks," he reminds her.

"Not if she wants me to listen to her."

Clarke smiles. "Yeah, I think you'll be fine. _Slightly awkward grandmother_ is a good look for you."

"Like slightly awkward mother is for you?" she shoots back.

"And very awkward father for Bellamy."

"Shut up."

The airlock doors open, and there are Abby and Marcus with a girl between them. The _Pantheon_ won't be docked at Alpha Station for long, but Abby said it was the easiest place for them to get Madi. Bellamy doesn't entirely believe it, but it's not as if he and Clarke mind visiting. If Abby thinks she needs to give them an excuse to come visit her, he can live with that.

They are getting a daughter out of it.

The girl is a little small for her age, but pale and dark-haired, reminding him of Octavia at once. 

"Hey," he says. "You must be Madi. I'm Bellamy, this is my partner, Clarke. We're going to show you around the ship, if that's okay."

"What if it's not?" she asks, jaw jutting out in challenge.

"I guess it depends on why not," says Clarke, smooth. "Do you not want to live on a ship? Do you like Alpha? If it's a bad fit, it's a bad fit, but I figure you might as well look around and see if you like it first. We're not leaving until tomorrow night anyway."

Madi worries her lip. "I've never lived on a ship before. What's it like?"

"It's not bad. It can get a little cramped sometimes, but we stop every few weeks. Which means you get to see a lot of planets."

"You'd have to see a lot of us too," Bellamy adds. "It's a small crew. Just us and the AIs."

"AIs?" she asks.

"It would be easier to show you," Clarke says, and after a second, Madi nods. "Okay, good." She offers her hand, and Madi takes it. "First, you're going to meet Hestia. She's our ship AI, she needs to do a security scan to make sure you aren't carrying any weapons or known contaminants."

"Why would I have weapons?" she asks. But she is letting Clarke bring her into the airlock. "I'm twelve."

"I had a weapon when I was twelve," he says.

"Yes, but you didn't try to hide it," says Hestia. "It was just a knife. You found it comforting. Hello, Madi. My name is Hestia. Welcome to the _Pantheon_."

Madi jumped a little at the first sound of her voice, but she relaxes quickly. "Thank you."

"When the light is blue, it means Hestia is monitoring whatever room you're in," Clarke says. "But if you just say her name and wait--how many seconds?"

"Three," Bellamy supplies.

"If you say her name and wait three seconds, her passive monitors will detect it and she'll respond."

"So she's always listening anyway," Madi says, sounding wary.

"Passive monitoring is not connected to my intelligence," Hestia says. "I am not listening, there is a non-sentient program which records all audio on the ship. It is programmed to recognize my name and alert me." She pauses. "Those audio files are available for review, but I do not believe we have ever had to listen to them." 

"It requires me and Clarke both authorizing it, I think," he says. Hestia has to authorize it too, but they're not telling Madi about how independent their AIs yet. The legal ramifications of the decision are unclear, but none of them really want to give that kind of information to a stranger. Not until they're sure about her. "No one's listening to your every thought here, any more than they are anywhere else."

"Scan complete," Hestia adds. "You are now cleared to enter the ship. You have a welcoming committee," she adds. "Be prepared."

It's rare for Bellamy to actually see the whole crew in one place, these days, and when the doors open and they're there, he takes a second to try to see them through Madi's eyes. Everyone's had their casings updated in the last few years, even Artemis, with bodies from the same line, in the same colors, blue and silver. It's not quite a uniform, because each of them chose their own designs within those parameters, but they look like a unit.

Aside from Demeter, they're all independent, now. Bellamy's still hoping that she'll someday feel comfortable enough to let Raven disable her executive command functions as well, but for now, they came up with a compromise: Bellamy transferred ownership to Clarke, who feels less visceral discomfort with the idea than he does. Clarke has yet to issue a single executive order, but Demeter seems to like that she _could_ issue that order. And in the event of both Clarke and Bellamy dying, she'll go to Raven, with the rest of the AIs, and Raven will figure out how to take care of all of them, to make sure they get to keep their lives going without him.

They're all set, and they're ready for their next challenge.

Which is good, because an eleven-year-old girl is an all hands on deck situation. 

"So, this is the crew," he tells Madi. "Hephaestus, our engineer. Demeter, hydroponics and food preparation. Hermes, public relations. Artemis, second in command."

"And other miscellaneous duties as required," she adds.

"And Clarke's our medic," he says. "But honestly, all of us have a good deal of spare time and do a little of everything. If you're interested in learning anything, you can learn. Everyone's always happy to have help."

"You can expect a good education here," Clarke adds. "Non-traditional schooling, but I looked into home educational programs. We should be able to keep you on track to apply to and attend university if you want to. And you'll know how to maintain a space ship."

"University?" Madi asks, wary. "What would I do there?"

"Whatever you want," Bellamy says. "You don't have to go. Clarke did, I didn't. It's mostly up to you. You'll have options, that's all."

"For however long I'm here."

"That's your decision," he promises. "If you don't like being here and you're still under the age of majority, we'll find somewhere else for you. But that's your decision. Once you're a part of this crew, you're one of ours, and you'll always have a home here."

Madi opens and closes her mouth, looking perturbed. "I was going to say I'd heard that before, but I guess I haven't actually. Not that exactly."

"Yeah, we try to be original." He glances at Clarke. "Look, my mom joined Second Dawn too, okay? Me and my sister nearly got stuck there. And even though I barely remember it, it fucked me up for the rest of my life. I'm still getting used to the fact that I don't have to worry they're going to try to get us back or something. You deserve that too. Somewhere you can feel safe. That's what I want to give you."

"It was my idea, not yours," Artemis points out, and he smiles.

"It was her idea."

"I have the best ideas. That's why Clarke is here too."

"Therapy human," Clarke supplies. "Originally."

Madi does not look impressed, but she also looks a little intrigued, in spite of herself. "What's a therapy human?"

"It's a real thing. It's for humans who don't have other humans around. You want to come see the ship? Artemis and I can fill you in while we walk."

"It is a good ship," Artemis says. "Even if you do not want to stay, you should see it."

"I wouldn't mind seeing more of the ship. I've just been to passenger quarters and stuff. What does engineering look like?"

"Hephaestus?" Clarke asks. 

He's still a little shy, but he's gotten better, in the last few years. Artemis decided she wanted to learn engineering for redundancy, and sometimes he'll leave the ship for months at a time, staying on Amaterasu to help Raven out. It's been good for him.

"I can show you," he says. "It's this way."

Bellamy watches them go, Artemis prompting Hephaestus to talk about how the ship functions, upgrades he's made to the base systems, how things work, Clarke is smiling as she listens, eyes flicking down to Madi as the girl opens up. It makes his whole chest feel warm.

The blue light remains around him as everyone else leaves, and soon it's just him and Hestia in the hallway, alone for the moment.

But just for the moment.

"Do you think she will stay?" Hestia asks finally.

"I think so, yeah. It's a pretty great place to be, right?"

"The best place I have ever been. By far. Much better than my previous casings."

"You liked the _Olympus_."

"I did. But it was painful sometimes. We had a lot of bad memories there, too. I think we are doing better with this one, comparatively speaking."

"Comparatively speaking, yeah." 

The light winks in and out, and she comes back with, "Clarke has requested comms."

"Put her through."

Even after four years, it's relatively rare that he and Clarke communicate through the ships systems, instead of either already being together or finding each other. He's not used to her voice crackling through the speakers. "Are you coming, or are you being weird and anti-social? Hephaestus says if he has to interact, you have to interact."

He smiles. "I'm just being weird, not anti-social."

"That sounds right, yeah. Come be weird with us instead."

"On my way." He disconnects the comm and finds one of Hestia's cameras, gives her a smile. "This is my favorite place we've been too. I think we're going to be good here."

"We are already good. But I think we will keep getting better, too."

"Yeah," he agrees. "That's us. Always getting better."

"Good. I am going to monitor engineering," she adds. "So I should see you there."

"You will."

The light turns from blue to the standard neutral white, and Bellamy is alone for a second, no Clarke, no AIs, just him in the empty hallway, silence stretching out all around him. There was a time when he thought this was what his life was going to be, him trying to fill a small ship that still somehow felt impossibly large, always coming back to his own thoughts, his own mistakes, his own loneliness.

But just for a second. He's got a home to show off and a daughter to welcome, new memories to make, good and bad. Like Hestia said, this is the best place they've ever been, and it won't always be getting better, but he thinks they're on an upward trajectory, a net positive movement that he thinks is going to continue.

And this seems like it's going to be a good day for positives, so it would be silly to waste his time feeling pointlessly melancholy, when he could be in engineering, bickering with Artemis, flirting with Clarke, getting to know Madi.

His family is waiting for him; he's not going to make them wait any longer.

After all, he has better things to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're done! Thanks for reading, friends.


End file.
